No Right Turn : Conservative Politics in a Liberal America / David T. Courtwright.
2011
Linked e-resources
Linked Resource
Online Access
Details
Title
No Right Turn : Conservative Politics in a Liberal America / David T. Courtwright.
ISBN
9780674058446
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2011]
Copyright
©2010
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (352 p.)
Item Number
10.4159/9780674058446 doi
Dewey Decimal Classification
320.520973
Summary
Few question the "right turn" America took after 1966, when liberal political power began to wane. But if they did, No Right Turn suggests, they might discover that all was not really "right" with the conservative golden age. A provocative overview of a half century of American politics, the book takes a hard look at the counterrevolutionary dreams of liberalism's enemies-to overturn people's reliance on expanding government, reverse the moral and sexual revolutions, and win the Culture War-and finds them largely unfulfilled. David T. Courtwright deftly profiles celebrated and controversial figures, from Clare Boothe Luce, Barry Goldwater, and the Kennedy brothers to Jerry Falwell, David Stockman, and Lee Atwater. He shows us Richard Nixon's keen talent for turning popular anxieties about morality and federal meddling to Republican advantage-and his inability to translate this advantage into reactionary policies. Corporate interests, boomer lifestyles, and the media weighed heavily against Nixon and his successors, who placated their base with high-profile attacks on crime, drugs, and welfare dependency. Meanwhile, religious conservatives floundered on abortion and school prayer, obscenity, gay rights, and legalized vices like gambling, and fiscal conservatives watched in dismay as the bills mounted. We see how President Reagan's mélange of big government, strong defense, lower taxes, higher deficits, mass imprisonment, and patriotic symbolism proved an illusory form of conservatism. Ultimately, conservatives themselves rebelled against George W. Bush's profligate brand of Reaganism. Courtwright's account is both surprising and compelling, a bracing argument against some of our most cherished clichés about recent American history.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Dez 2022)
Linked Resources
Online Access
Record Appears in
Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources
All Resources
Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
1. How to Think about the Culture War
2. Like It Was When I Was a Boy
3. Overcome
4. Twenty Percent of What the Nuts Want
5. Cheerleaders for the Rev
6. Babe in Christ
7. Act Right
8. Robert Bork's America
9. Like Battling the Devil
10. Referendum on the 1960s
11. The Illusion of Conservatism
Abbreviations
Notes
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Index
Contents
1. How to Think about the Culture War
2. Like It Was When I Was a Boy
3. Overcome
4. Twenty Percent of What the Nuts Want
5. Cheerleaders for the Rev
6. Babe in Christ
7. Act Right
8. Robert Bork's America
9. Like Battling the Devil
10. Referendum on the 1960s
11. The Illusion of Conservatism
Abbreviations
Notes
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Index