Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus [Paperback]

Rick Perlstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 2009

Acclaimed historian Rick Perlstein chronicles the rise of the conservative movement in the liberal 1960s. At the heart of the story is Barry Goldwater, the renegade Republican from Arizona who loathed federal government, despised liberals, and mocked “peaceful coexistence” with the USSR. Perlstein’s narrative shines a light on a whole world of conservatives and their antagonists, including William F. Buckley, Nelson Rockefeller, and Bill Moyers. Vividly written, Before the Storm is an essential book about the 1960s.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Not every presidential election is worth a book more than a quarter-century after the last ballot has been counted. The 1964 race was different, though, and author Rick Perlstein knows exactly why. That year, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Democrat, trounced his opponent, Barry Goldwater, a Republican senator from Arizona, in a blowout of historic proportions. The conservative wing of the GOP, which had toiled for so long as the minority partner in a coalition dominated by more liberal brethren, finally had risen to power and nominated one of its own, only to see him crash in terrible splendor. It looked like a death, but it was really a birth: a harrowing introduction to politics that would serve conservatives well in the years ahead as they went on to great success. Conservatives learned a lot in 1964:

It was learning how to act: how letters got written, how doors got knocked on, how co-workers could be won over on the coffee break, how to print a bumper sticker and how to pry one off with a razor blade; how to put together a network whose force exceeded the sum of its parts by orders of magnitude; how to talk to a reporter, how to picket, and how, if need be, to infiltrate--how to make the anger boiling inside you ennobling, productive, powerful, instead of embittering.

These were practical lessons that anybody in politics must pick up. For conservatives, the rough indoctrination came in 1964, and Perlstein (who is not a conservative) tells their story in detail and with panache. Before the Storm is not a history of conservative ideas (for that, read The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, by George Nash), but a chronicle of how these ideas began to matter in politics. The victory of Ronald Reagan in 1980--to say nothing of Newt Gingrich in 1994 and George W. Bush in 2000--might not have been possible without the glorious failure of Barry Goldwater in 1964. As Perlstein writes, "You lost in 1964. But something remained after 1964: a movement. An army. An army that could lose a battle, suck it up, regroup, then live to fight a thousand battles more." --John J. Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In the 1964 presidential campaign, LBJ ate Barry Goldwater for lunch and thereby, according to the pundits, stuck a fork in the heart of American conservatism. But Goldwater's politics were vindicated, Perlstein argues, by subsequent elections, especially Reagan's in 1980, and his tenets are championed today on both sides of the aisle. Perhaps. What's more important about Perlstein's argument is its subtext. By casting the senator as the long-term winner, Perlstein's chronicle vindicates what appears to have been Goldwater's magnificently ham-handed campaign. Conservative readers will cringe at the missed opportunities and wrongheaded tactics; the scattered and mismanaged themes, including Goldwater's crippling clarion call for extremism; the extremists who embraced him; and the backroom machinations and supporters that in many ways created Goldwater. Certainly they'll see Nixon and Reagan in an unlikely light: using the deck of the sinking ship Goldwater as a platform for their own careers. Liberal readers, on the other hand, will approach the pinnacle of schadenfreude. And they'll either be peeved or amused by Perlstein's unabashed partisanship, perhaps best shown in his observation that LBJ's deputy Bill Moyers pioneered dirty campaign tactics: "the full-time-espionage, sabotage, and mudslinging unit." Aptly casting conservativism as the triumphant underdog, Perlstein observes that "in 1995 Bill Clinton paid Reagan tribute by adopting many of his political positions. Which had also been Barry Goldwater's positions. Here is one time, at least, in which history was written by the losers." With Republicans again in the ascendancy, this account of their fall and subsequent rise should interest readers of all political stripes. Illus. not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books; Reprint edition (March 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568584121
• ISBN-13: 978-1568584126
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.8 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Elections & Political Process > Elections

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 64 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Conservative Backstory March 13, 2001

By Ken Haltom

Format:Hardcover

If you are a reader of culture and politics, I can guarantee that you have never read the story contained in this book. The history of the sixties has been packaged by the so called "victors" for 30 years. Rick Perlstein just broke up that monopoly. Somehow he tells the story of the birth of modern conservatism without attacking the ideology, or schilling for it either. We hear alot about "balance" these days, but here we actually have it. This is the way history should be written.

Perlstein is a thirty year old guy, who obviously went beyond his textbooks while in school. He is one of the rare modern writers of politics and culture who treats the subject of American conservatism seriously by painstakingly recreating its march forward, led by Barry Goldwater. Goldwater's defeat in '64 was spectacular, but as Perlstein puts it, conservatives "sucked it up" and moved on.

If you are a conservative you will love the detail of the book. If you are Liberal you may begin to understand how the conservative ideology was battle tested in '64 and how it later used that huge defeat as a source of strength in the eighties and nineties. Most of all if you want to know more about the truth of the sixties, read this book. Perlstein shows that alot more than just flower power happened during that complex decade.

47 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars MUST Read Regardless of Your Political Persuasion June 9, 2001

By Steve Iaco

Format:Hardcover

Aficionados of U.S. political history, regardless of their political persuasion, will immensely enjoy Rick Perlstein account of the pivotal Presidential election of 1964. Given Johnson's lopsided majority -- the largest landslide to that point in U.S. history -- the 1964 contest would appear, on the surface, to be uninteresting. However, 1964 was pivotal not for who won, but who lost and why. Perlstein, an avowed Leftist himself, adroitly recounts the rise of the new Conservative movement, which flexed its political muscles for the first time with the nomination of Barry Goldwater. Ironically, as Perstein shows, pundit after pundit proclaimed the Conservative movement stillborn following Goldwater's pitiful 27-million vote total (compared with Johnson's 43 million). It would be, Perlstein points out, one of the greatest political misjudgments in U.S. history, as the next 30 years would attest.

"Before the Storm" has much to commend it. A few of the more interesting anecdotes include:

* Clifton White's brilliant, secretive Draft Goldwater campaign and his tactical genius in out-flanking the Rockefeller/Scranton/Lodge partisans at the convention;

* the internecine struggle for the soul of the young Conservative Movement between Welch's John Birch Society and Buckley's National Review;

* the rise of the Young Americans for Freedom, which would dwarf its better known liberal counterpart, Students for a Democratic Society;

* the role of Bill Moyers, the holier-than-thou PBS personality, in pioneering a new advertising genre: the political attack ad.

* the dramatic political debut of Ronald Reagan, with his acclaimed "A Time for Choosing" speech -- broadcast nationally on election eve.

I could go on and on.... "Before the Storm" is neither a paean to, nor an attack on, the Conservative Movement. Rather, Perstein's account is thorough, well researched and even handed. A MUST read for political fans of all stripes. Read more ›

62 of 72 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The origins of the modern Right, as seen from the Left June 8, 2001

By Stephen M. St Onge VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Why should you read this book? Lots of reasons.

First, read BEFORE THE STORM for it's look at the origins of the modern political era. When the polls closed on Election Night '64, the Democrats had just won the Presidency for the seventh time in nine elections, and they held huge majorities in both houses of Congress. The experts debated whether the Republican party could survive, but all agreed that the Conservative movement was dead as vaudeville.

Within two years, the Republicans came roaring back in Congress and the state capitols, and the Conservatives held veto power in the Party. The GOP won five of the next six Presidential elections, captured the Senate in the eighties and both houses of Congress in the nineties, and the only Republican presidential candidates to lose were two incumbents who had shown themselves as not conservative enough for the fire-eaters. Who ordered this?

Perlstein shows how the charges that blew apart the consensus were laid. He follows the people who were determined to create a Conservative movement, and shows how they eventually succeeded in forcing their champion, Barry Goldwater, into running for the office he didn't want.

BEFORE THE STORM also shows us how crazy politics can make people. It's jaw dropping to read of Clarence Manion's efforts to make Orville Faubus into the standard bearer of Constitutional govt. Faubus arguably should have been hanged for treason!

And how many of knew that Barry Goldwater was either a totally incompetent politician, or he deliberately sabotaged his presidential effort? The story of Goldwater's '64 'campaign' is a near-perfect record of doing the wrong thing. Yet it didn't matter.... Goldwater did the three things necessary to birth the modern Conservative movement: he ran, he allowed Clifton White to organize the volunteers who would take over the Republican party, and he introduced the politician who knew how to reach the people: Ronald Reagan. (My wife, hearing Reagan give "The Speech" for Goldwater, wished she could vote for Ronnie for President instead. Took a while, but ...)

It's also illuminating to watch LBJ and his sanctimonious minions attempt to frighten the public into believing Goldwater was a madman who'd get us involved in a war, while secretly planning to do it themselves. How could so many, including me, be taken in by that fraud?

Well, reading Perlstein, we're shown how easy it is to miss what's important. The public didn't know what Johnson would do, and the pundits had no idea a Conservative tidal wave would sweep away New Deal politics. Remember that the next time some television gas bag confidently predicts the future, or candidates assure you they'll never do 'X'.

BEFORE THE STORM also reminds us of things we prefer to forget or deny, such as the way Goldwater and others abandoned principle to appeal to racists. As a Known Fascist, I hang my head in shame for what we compromised with.

But most of all, read BEFORE THE STORM for a great piece of objective history. No one will fail to realize that Rick Perlstein is a Leftist who disagrees with almost every political position Barry Goldwater ever held. But he hardly ever lets his point of view get in the way of explaining his subject's viewpoint.

Occasionally, Perlstein stumbles. His claim that Walter Knott got rich off Big Govt. is just silly, and his criticism of western water projects not much better. I could also wish he'd bothered to read books like McCARTHY AND HIS ENEMIES, instead of relying on summaries by hostile critics, or concentrated more on how liberal Democrats like Reagan and Charleton Heston became conservative Republicans. But far more often, he gets inside the heads of those he profiles, as when he tells of the white South's genuine fear that ending racism would also mean ending everything good in Dixie's distinctive subculture. I'm impressed. I look forward to reading future books by Rick Perlstein on any subject, and only hope that my eventual work on Robert Oppenheimer and his times can be as insightful, thorough, and above all, honest. I may even delve into (shudder) THE NATION just to read his articles.

Highly recommended. Read more ›

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Political history at its BEST May 22, 2005

By Max J Rosenthal

Format:Paperback

Quite simply, this is an amazing work. It starts as the book the cover would suggest it is: tightly focused, part Goldwater biography and part tale of the conservative movement's early days. By the end, however, the story is less Goldwater and the election and far more a sweeping survey of American life in the early 60s. The campaign fades away, Perlstein masterfully weaves in tales of the civil rights movement, demonstrations, and other events, and Johnson becomes as central to the close of the story as does his opponent. And this only adds to the impact of the book, since both aspects are written amazingly well. Following the Goldwater campaign with all its missteps is as agonizing as the wider diversions are educational. In the end, there is a complete and engaging portrait both of the election and the massive changes in American society that it portended (not to mention how different things are today: the chaos of Goldwater's campaign is utterly surreal in comparison to the machines of current elecitons).

Perhaps most importantly, the book is amazingly even-handed. Perlstein's politics are obvious, but his observations come across as more therapeutic than enraged, almost seeming to sympathize with Goldwater as he tries to fight off the truly lunatic elements. It means that Before the Storm is a book that both conservatives and liberals can and should enjoy. Anyone seeking to understand why politics and society are what they are today should start here.