The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America [Hardcover]

Adrian Wooldridge (Author), John Micklethwait (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 24, 2004

With a unique blend of insight, balance, and wit, two of our most renowned America watchers brilliantly anatomize the conservative movement and explain how it has stamped its program so deeply into American life.

The Right Nation is not "for" liberals, and it's not "for" conservatives. It's for any of us who want to understand one of the most important forces shaping American life. How did America's government become so much more conservative in just a generation? Compared to Europe-or to America under Richard Nixon-even President Howard Dean would preside over a distinctly more conservative nation in many crucial respects: welfare is gone; the death penalty is deeply rooted; abortion is under siege; regulations are being rolled back; the pillars of New Deal liberalism are turning to sand. Conservative positions have not prevailed everywhere, of course, but this book shows us why they've been so successfully advanced over such a broad front: because the battle has been waged by well-organized, shrewd, and committed troops who to some extent have been lucky in their enemies.

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, like modern-day Tocquevilles, have the perspective to see this vast subject in the round, unbeholden to forces on either side. They steer The Economist's coverage of the United States and have unrivaled access to resources and-because of the magazine's renown for iconoclasm and analytical rigor-have had open-door access wherever the book's research has led them. And it has led them everywhere: To reckon with the American right, you have to get out there where its centers are and understand the power flow among the brain trusts, the mouthpieces, the organizers, and the foot soldiers. The authors write with wit and skewer whole herds of sacred cows, but they also bring empathy to bear on a subject that sees all too little of it. You won't recognize this America from the far-left's or the far-right's caricatures. Divided into three parts-history, anatomy, and prophecy-The Right Nation comes neither to bury the American conservative movement nor to praise it blindly but to understand it, in all its dimensions, as the most powerful and effective political movement of our age.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the introduction to this engaging study of American conservatism, Micklethwait and Wooldridge of the Economist disclaim any allegiance to America's "two great political tribes." It is this Tocquevillian quality of informed impartiality that makes their book so effective at conveying how profoundly the right has reshaped the American political landscape over the past half century. The authors trace the history of the conservative movement from the McCarthy era, when "conservatism was a fringe idea," to the second Bush administration and the "victory of the right." They dissect the new "conservative establishment," which combines the intellectual force of think tanks, business interest groups and sympathetic media outlets with the "brawn" of "footsoldiers" from the populist social conservative wing of the GOP, and argue that continuing Republican hegemony is likely. Democratic optimists who point to favorable demographic trends are exaggerating the liberalism of Latino and professional voters, say the authors, while other factors, such as suburbanization and terrorism, will tend to promote Republican values. Still, the right should be worried about its own "capacity for extremism and intolerance" and about holding together its unlikely alliance of religious moralists and small-government activists. Even so, say the authors, conservative ideas are now so pervasive in American society that even a Kerry administration could do little to divert the country's long-term rightward drift. This epochal political transformation is rarely analyzed with the degree of dispassionate clarity that Micklethwait and Wooldridge bring to their penetrating analysis.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Somewhere the triumphal ghost of Barry Goldwater must be explaining to the perplexed shade of Edmund Burke why American conservatism has far surpassed--and curiously defied--its European antecedents. Readers of this study of modern American politics may indeed feel that they are eavesdropping on such a spectral colloquy. For in exploring the American politics of the Right, Micklethwait and Wooldridge analyze a phenomenon that owes much to European traditions yet has unexpectedly transformed and even subverted others. Thus in probing the forces that, in recent decades, have given Republicans control of both the White House and Congress, the authors highlight both a widespread American distrust of government that most British Tories can well understand and a conjoined American individualism that utterly mystifies those same Tories. American conservatives owe some of their recent success to liberal overreach (Johnson's Great Society programs, the Clintons' national health-care proposal). However, the authors limn a powerful dynamic within American conservatism itself, a dynamic that unites the brainpower of Right-leaning think tanks with the moral passion of religious activists, the monomania of gun enthusiasts, and the entrepreneurial energy of small-business owners. Whether that explosive fusion will blow away remaining liberal and leftist opposition or will disintegrate amid its own internal contradictions remains to be seen (and both scenarios receive scrutiny). But no one who wants to understand the possible political trajectories for a country that befuddles--and not infrequently enrages--its European allies can ignore this book. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (May 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594200203
• ISBN-13: 978-1594200205
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,432,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading ... but frustrating October 2, 2004

By fml66

Format:Hardcover

This book is fascinating, but it's also frustrating in many ways. Micklethwaite and Wooldridge are two Oxford-educated Brits who have done a lot of traveling and work (they are writers for The Economist) in the States. The book bills itself as a primer for explaining the conservative movement and its ascendancy to a European audience, so the criticisms from some reviews here that the book doesn't seem to know what it wants to be or that it will seem simplistic to Americans are off-base: the book is not structured as an in-depth scholarly treatment of the history of US conservative politics.

The main political and historical points that the authors make, including a concise and informative summary of the movement's history and several well-considered theories about why conservatism has become the winning argument in the US, are strong, although they tend toward an overreliance on already-established work done by the likes of Seymour Martin Lipset. On the other hand, culturally, the authors tend to be somewhat typically British in their condescension. They profess to love the friendliness and bonhomie of the fly-over states, but they never hesitate to poke fun at the "fact" that there are so many fat people living in them (and so many thin ones in the blue states). The final section of the book starts out with a grandiose contrast between "Hastertland" -- the Speaker of the House's Congressional district in northern Illinois -- and "Pelosiland" -- basically all of San Francisco -- that is so stereotypical and inaccurate that it borders on the asinine. All told, the book is well worth reading, because it has a lot of value to say about why conservatism, contrary to the views of numerous mainstream poitical pundits, is not a passing fad, but it's also got some significant flaws.

146 of 167 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fair and balanced (if you'll pardon the expression) and fun July 2, 2004

By Andrew S. Rogers TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I walked through the current-events section of a brick-and-mortar bookstore recently and was amazed by the mass of anti-Bush books on the shelves. They're everywhere. A cottage industry. If the Clinton-haters dialed into talk radio, the Bush-haters are all hunched over their keyboards, pouring their spleen onto the page.

It's a little discouraging, then, that this great book -- "The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America" -- should come out in the midst of all this noise. My fear is that people will see it as just one more "exposé" of the evil right-wingers and their malevolent influence on the country.

If that's what you're looking for, you're bound to be disappointed. This is, in fact, a thoroughly researched and marvelously fair look at the rise of conservatism as a political force in America. More than that, it's a fascinating look at why America is a fundamentally conservative place, and why even liberal Democrats -- on the far Left by U.S. standards -- would be centrists, or even conservatives themselves, in Europe. While this last may be an unpleasant idea for the American Left to have to entertain, even readers on that side of the political spectrum will find a lot in here to recommend it.

Especially useful, I thought, was the authors' discussion of the true role and influence of the much-maligned neo-conservatives. Far from their alleged role as the dark masterminds behind unilateralism, preemption, and other Bad Things in American foreign policy, Micklethwait and Wooldridge argue that (a) the neo-cons are less influential than popularly imagined, and (b) that Bush's decisions and policies are consistent with the broad range of conservative opinion, not the product of an obscure Straussian corner of it. With all the hysterical attention given to the neo-cons these days, this part of M&W's discussion struck me as refreshingly calm and reasonable.

With the analytical distance that comes from not being Americans themselves, Micklethwait and Wooldridge have keen insights into the successes and failures, the good and the bad, of American conservatism. And while their work is insightful and thorough, it's also well written, engrossing, and even, from time to time, flat-out funny. Its polished prose makes it easy to read, and the balance of personalities and issues keeps it from getting mired down in obscure policy debates or analysis of election returns. I was fortunate to be able to dive into its pages for hours at a time, and seldom found myself bored or skimming.

From the vast sea of ink spilled on the Iraq War, the American Empire, Halliburton, Karl Rove, the neo-cons, Texas, and other evils -- plus George W. Bush's apparent ability to be simultaneously bottomlessly stupid and an evil genius -- every so often, a real gem floats to the surface. "The Right Nation" is one of those gems. Scoop it up and enjoy it.

44 of 48 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars good overview but lacks substance June 4, 2004

By Yalensian VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

An avid reader and student of American politics, particularly the conservative movement, I was excited to see this book and hesitate to give it a negative review, since it is so very fair to its subject. But I found it limited and superficial.

First, some good points. The book treats conservatism and conservatives very objectively--without any kind of arrogance or condescension or venom. They approach conservatism seriously and treat it as a legitimate political philosophy held by intelligent people. Neither are they uncritical. Flaws and errors are outlined, and the authors are particularly harsh on John Ashcroft. The book's main arguments are especially interesting: that conservatism is what makes American unique; that the process works the other way and American exceptionalism gives American conservatism its distinctive character (and sharply distinguishes it from European conservatism); that conservatism triumphed mainly through demography (specifically the shift west and south), intellectuals/think tanks, and foot soldiers/grassroots; and that the US is and will remain an essentially conservative nation, no matter who is elected in 2004.

Ultimately, though, the book is superficial. The best part of the book is its first section that chronicles the roots of the conservative movement in the 1950s. Not only highly readable, it gives a very nice summary of that period, touching on the key names (like Kirk, Hayek, Rand, and Buckley) and providing some colorful anecdotes (like Albert Jay Nock's penchant for capes). Still, those versed in the movement's history--particularly those who have read Nash's superb Conservative Intellectual Movement in America--will find nothing new here and will most likely be frustrated by how much the authors gloss over, such as the fusion of traditionalism and libertarianism (which they attribute to William F. Buckley without mentioning Frank Meyer) or how conservatives shunned the Birchers.

After the history lesson, the book discusses the conservative present and future, loses much of its focus, and starts to digress and repeat points that were previously reviewed (including an almost verbatim repetition of a six-point summary of Burke's philosophy). It is at this point that the authors move from ideas to politics, which is logical since the book is about "conservative power" and conservatives gain power through politics. But too frequently, the authors seem implicitly to conflate conservatism with the Republican Party. Certainly, the GOP is home to most conservatives, and we surely have some form of *Republican* power today, holding all three branches of government and evidenced by the red-blue map, but it is debatable whether Republican governance, and the Bush administration specifically, represents *conservative* power. This should have been discussed.

The book was clearly written for those unfamiliar with the conservative movement and American politics, if the basic descriptions of American government are any indication (did you know each state has two senators and that this gives small, rural states as much or more power than larger states?). As an introduction, then, to American conservatism and political beliefs, this book is excellent. And because it is so fair, it is a much-need corrective for those inclined toward simplistic and stereotypical views of conservatism. But those well-versed in the history and ways of the American Right might want to look elsewhere.