Conservative Intellect Movem

by George H. Nash

Book Overview

First published in 1976, George H. Nash's celebrated history of the postwar conservative intellectual movement has become the unquestioned standard in the field. This new edition, published in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465014011
• ISBN13: 9780465014019
• Release Date: May 1976
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 463 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Required reading

Indispensable as an introduction to the development of conservative thought in roughly the third quarter of the 20th century, Nash's history has no peers. Illustrating clearly the fractiousness (maybe even inherent incompatibility) of the factions gathered by necessity under the umbrella of conservative thought, he charts well the intellectual underpinnings of conservativism in the United States of America. Most importantly, he highlights that a generally uncelebrated cause for both the fusion and the success of the movement is the lack of correspondence between liberal legislation and quantitative results during this period. That being said, there are a few areas one would like to see fleshed out in more detail. Specifically, neo-conservatives as they emerge in the early seventies, the conservative "scene" during the first and second Nixon administrations, the Vietnam War in contemporary conservative intellectual thought, and the impact of conservative intellectuals on politics-particularly with regard to Goldwater and Reagan-are relatively undeveloped. Indeed, those themes are sufficient for book-length treatment themselves, so Nash cannot be faulted; moreover, his is an intellectual history, and to expect him to detail the political aspects of conservative thought and to chart accurately the time period so close to his writing of this book would be unreasonable. In sum, one cannot claim to have any insight into conservative thought without having perused this volume.

Thorough and Thought-Provoking

As someone who has come to conservatism at the end of the twentieth century, this book opened to me my own political prehistory, the thinking underlying conservative ideas. To some extent, it forced me to decide what kind of conservative I am.The book is not strictly chronological in its discussion. Nash begins with one chapter apiece on each of the three principal strands of American conservatism post World War II: libertarianism, traditionalism, and anti-communism. Each strand is discussed chronologically and in terms of its principal proponents, leading works, publications, organizations, roots and, of course, theory.Subsequent chapters discuss the efforts of these three groups to cooperate and to consolidate, the efforts to find specifically American roots for conservative ideas, and the growth of the conservative movement in the thirty years or so following 1945. An Epilogue written for the 1996 edition discusses subsequent changes in American conservatism, including neoconservatism and the religious right.The title correctly identifies the subject matter of the book -- it is a history of an intellectual movement, and only secondarily a political history. Certain watershed events in contemporary conservatism (the McCarthy investigations, the election campaign of Barry Goldwater, and similar) are touched upon, but principally as phenomena to which conservatives react or by which they are shaped.Highly recommended.

Discover your intellectual roots!

I'd heard Nash's book referred to many times but avoided reading it because I thought I knew the modern history of conservative thought fairly well. I was wrong. Just as attending law school taught me I didn't know nearly as much about the Constitution as I thought I did, reading Nash taught me I didn't know nearly as much about 20th century conservatism as I'd believed. If you're a conservative, it's thrilling to watch the movement grow from a tiny group with little status into a powerful force capable of electing a president. It's also very practical because you can see the supporting structures of a movement develop through alternative institutions and endowed professor's chairs. Become a total conservative wonk-geek who will understand most of the oblique references you've read in National Review. Read this book.

One of the most interesting books I have ever read

For anyone interested in the philosophical underpinnings of the right, "Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945" provides an astounding primer. Nash presents brief biographies of many of the major players in the conservative intellectual movement which trace their intellectual paths towards conservativism. Focusing on many of the major players in conservative and liberatarian thought (i.e., Buckley, Kirk, Van Hayek, etc.), it also presents the opinions of many lesser known but equally important conservative and liberatrian thinkers such as Frank Chodorov, Albert Jay Nock, and Murray Rothbard. Nash also shows the opposing views of conservativism from intellectuals like Arthur Schelsinger, Jr. If anyone you know makes massive generalizations about the "myopic" views of conservatives and liberatarians then present them with this book as it shows the diversity of strands in conservative and libertarian thought. All in all, one of the best books looking at any intellectual movement I have ever read and I've read quite alot.

Excellent Continuation of Kirk's "Conservative Mind" History

I consider this book to be a continuation of the conservative history documented in Russell Kirk's "The Conservative Mind." Kirk covered from Edmund Burke to T.S. Eliot (i.e. from the American Revolution and into the New Deal) and Nash has covered from post-World War II to the mid-1970s (i.e. out of the New Deal; into and out of the Fair Deal, New Frontier and Great Society and into Stagflation and National Malaise). Nash has done a superb job of writing a cohesive and seamless history of the events, literature, people, struggles and ideas that contributed to the emergence of late 20th century conservative ascendance. The book is extremely well documented and is a virtual smorgasbord of bibliographic information for further study and examination. The revised synoptic epilogue doesn't do justice to the final culmination of conservative victory and I believe another historian will have to meet the challenge of finishing the story (or at least bringing it up to date). But it is going to be difficult for any author to do the stupendous job that Kirk and Nash have done in covering the conservative movement in America. The book is a must-read for conservatives and anyone else interested in the ascendancy of conservatism in America.