White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement [Hardcover]

Allan J. Lichtman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2008

Spanning nearly one hundred years of American political history, and abounding with outsize characters--from Lindbergh to Goldwater to Gingrich to Abramoff-- White Protestant Nation offers a penetrating look at the origins, evolution, and triumph (at times) of modern conservatism. Lichtman is both a professor of political history at American University and a veteran journalist, and after ten years of prodigious research, he has produced what may be the definitive history of the modern conservative movement in America. He brings to life a gallery of dynamic right-wing personalities, from luminaries such as Strom Thurmond, Phyllis Schlafly, and Bill Kristol to indispensable inside operators like financiers Frank Gannett and J. Howard Pew. He explodes the conventional wisdom that modern conservative politics began with Goldwater and instead traces the roots of today’s movement to the 1920s. And he lays bare the tactics that conservatives have used for generations to put their slant on policy and culture; to choke the growth of the liberal state; and to build the most powerful media, fundraising, and intellectual network in the history of representative government. White Protestant Nation is entertaining, provocative, enlightening, and essential reading for anyone who cares about modern American politics and its history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This comprehensive study of conservative politics from the post-WWI era to the present is replete with clear analysis and good nuggets of information. Lichtman (The Keys of the White House) profiles the behind-the-scenes operators who have crafted the marching orders for right-wing Americans in the last half-century—financiers like J. Howard Pew, Frank Gannett and the Du Ponts, direct-mail kingpin Richard Viguerie and drawing-room conservatives like William F. Buckley and Bill Kristol. Lichtman observes how a clique of probusiness, mainly Protestant, Americans chaffed at the birth of the welfare state under Democratic administrations and built a network of organizations to resist social engineering and encroaching federal power. The book argues that in postwar America, rising fears over immigration, desegregation and sexual egalitarianism gave bloom to an ethic of Anglo-Saxon supremacy—but Lichtman ignores the deep roots such ideas have in American culture. Lichtman also neglects the transformation in the post–civil rights era, when the conservative movement tried to shed its extreme racial and cultural doctrines and began attracting minority voters and politicos. As a structural blueprint of conservative political power, however, this book is without peer, giving readers a wonderful historical survey of the last 80 years of conservative politics. (June)
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From the Inside Flap

Spanning nearly one hundred years of American political history, and abounding with outsize characters--from Lindbergh to Goldwater to Gingrich to Abramoff--White Protestant Nation offers a penetrating and comprehensive look at the origins, evolution, and triumph (at times) of modern conservatism

In the long-awaited new book from the author of The Keys to the White House--which the Baltimore Sun called "a must book for political junkies" and which remains influential after more than fifteen years in print--Allan J. Lichtman has produced what may be the definitive history of the modern conservative movement in America.

Lichtman is both a professor of political history and a veteran journalist, and he has spent the past ten years combing through more than 150 manuscript collections--confidential memos, internal strategy papers, secret correspondence, and much more--to capture the entire tapestry and trajectory of the conservative movement. He brings to life a gallery of dynamic right-wing personalities, from luminaries such as Strom Thurmond, Billy Graham, Phyllis Schlafly, William F. Buckley Jr., and Bill Kristol to indispensable inside operators like financiers Frank Gannett, J. Howard Pew, and Richard Mellon Scaife. He explodes the conventional wisdom that modern conservative politics began with Goldwater and instead traces the roots of today's movement to the 1920s. He shows how modern conservatism was born out of post-World War I fears that secular, pluralistic, and cosmopolitan forces threatened America's national identity. And he lays bare the tactics that conservatives have used for generations to put their slant on policy and culture; to choke the growth of the liberal state from the New Deal era to the Great Society to the Clinton years; and to build the most powerful network of media, fundraising, and intellectual organizations in the history of representative government.

Ultimately, Lichtman concludes that conservative ideology is grounded not in specific issues such as limited government, low taxes, or free markets--most of which are disposable ideas that the right has been quick to embrace or reject to suit the needs of the moment--but rather in a dual vision of America as a white Protestant nation, and a country whose greatness is driven by private enterprise. He argues that President George W. Bush is the heir to both the strengths and weaknesses of this tradition, and he explores whether Bush is presiding over the demise of the modern conservative movement.

Lively, comprehensive, and built on unprecedented primary research, White Protestant Nation tells the whole story of the modern conservative movement and its place within the big picture of American history. This book is entertaining, provocative, enlightening, and essential reading for anyone who cares about American politics and its history.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition edition (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871139847
• ISBN-13: 978-0871139849
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,236,262 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars In spite of the title, a serious book July 10, 2008

By Magyar

Format:Hardcover

Because of the provocative title, I at first thought that this was one of those in-your-face political harangues that populate the front tables of bookstores. However I quickly found that this was a serious, scholarly study of American conservative thought (and action) in the 20th century.

I think Lichtman is on to something. I had read Sean Wilentz'z "The Rise of American Democracy" a few months ago and this book seems that it could have been a good companion. I guess the central thesis that could be argued is that America was founded as a democracy, albeit a democracy only for white, anglo, Protestant, property-owning heterosexual males. Much of the dynamics of American culture and politics in both the 19th and 20th centuries has been both the attempt to expand this definition of democratic government and the resulting response to defend and/or restore the status quo. This really highlights how much the "idea" of America is a highly politically contested concept.

The strength of Lichtman's book is how he shows the continued line of conservative thinking from the 1920 (which was sort of a reset point for American conservatives after the upheavals of the Progressive Era and internationalism of Wilson) to the present. His discussion of the role of the woman's vote was very enlightening, showing how that otherwise conservative men supported woman's vote as a counterweight to the growing immigrant voting population. For me the whole discussion of the pre- 1970s conservative movement is the major strength of the book.

Now for the book's drawbacks. Lichtman seems to have fallen to the dreaded graduate student vice of "pump and dump," that is "pumping" as much data and historical information as possible from the archives and other historical sources and then "dumping" it all into the text. As a result. The read is hit with pages of detailed accounts of numerous characters, events and publications. This seems to be work ok when he is talking about the 1920s and the 1930s and the focus of his "White Protestant Nation" theme is clear, but the closer he gets to the present, the more the details seem to muddy the analysis.
Because of his emphasis on the details, there is a certain loss of focus and context in his analysis. For example the McCarthy anti-red campaign is only given cursory treatment. As he gets closer to the present, it only gets worse and his treatment of the Reagan era is at best a chronology.

Still, in spite of these drawbacks, the books is a valuable historical study that should become part of standard literature about American politics.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly broad brushstrokes of history August 14, 2008

By Timothy P. Scanlon VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've been curious for many years. We can talk about various economic or political systems as if they're acceptable. But one about which we cannot speak without being treated like we've used inappropriate language is "Communism." It struck me that the "conservatives" must have a pretty powerful platform since we can't even talk about that concept except negatively.

This volume I read not long after completing Alan Dawley's "Struggles for Justice," while listening to David Halberstram's "The Coldest Winter: American and the Korean War," and while reading a fine article by Thomas Frank in "Harper's" magazine about the neo-cons in today's government. Combined, they paint a fairly clear picture of the "evolution" of American conservatism.

The book is set up both chronologically and thematically; one can see the "evolution" (thought some might think of is as devolution) of America's right wing throughout the years. And that mix made the book compelling.

The book's first chapter is entitled "The Birth of the Modern Right: 1920 - 1928." Conventional wisdom seems to attribute the beginning of the "modern right" to the era of Goldwater, but Lichtman thinks it took place quite a bit earlier. This was the post-WWI era. During that war, Americans had to be stimulated by the Creel Commission, or Committee on Public Information to despise the heathen Huns (Germans). After the war, that zeal went against the bomb-throwing Bolsheviks. And this was the era of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

What the "right" feared later took place when Franklin Roosevelt was elected. Lichtman seems to make clear--as have other authors--that Roosevelt wasn't some red-flag waving socialist. (Indeed, years ago I researched an article on Social Security in which I learned that Roosevelt used that and other economic benefits to sustain the system, not destroy it!) But by the time of Roosevelt's election, the anti-Communist fervor had been thoroughly institutionalized. So it was, indeed, used by many on the "right" to discredit the New Deal.

Subsequent to that experiment were born institutions like the John Birch Society and other far-right organizations which had credibility for a while.

Interestingly, by the way, when the book covers the Goldwater era, the author suggests that after Goldwater's defeat was when the right decided to regroup and rethink its strategy.

A name that came up many, many times in the book was J. Howard Pew. His foundation helped to fund many a right wing cause throughout much of the 20th century. (Indeed, without that foundation, many of such causes wouldn't have been able to survive). And the theme structure of the book led into later in the century, I think it was during the 70s, that many more foundations became the backbone of the right. Two that come to mind are Scaife and Bradley.

Another "theme" that evolved was the right's use of "think tanks." The American Enterprise Institute had been somewhat of a think tank earlier in the century. But, Lichtman points out, AEI was "pluralist." Later right wing think tanks included Heritage Foundation, which wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for great grants from foundations like the ones to which I referred. And they were anti-pluralist.

Another even more disturbing theme was that social science research was traditionally, like that of the "hard" sciences, scholarly. In other words, journals were peer reviewed, studied by others, and found to be credible. As the "right" became more institutionalized in the 1980s and 90s, some of that academic rigor disappeared. And then you had documents such as Hernstein and Murray's "Bell Curve"--and countless others-- which had not undergone any rigorous evaluation but appeared to have some credence because of the institution from which it came.

A subject of which I was unaware until I read this book is that Reagan was seen by many a conservative as being too liberal. Indeed, what appeared a little disconcerting about the text is that Lichtman seemed to justify some of Reagan's actions because of their apparent "success." Only later in the text did he list the consequences, e.g., the widened gap between the rich and poor, and the massive federal deficit.

The book finally got to our present state of affairs in which we have a fairly far right presidency, which, while claiming to be conservative, is really quite statist in more ways than many would like. Indeed, that section kind of summarized what had been repeated many times throughout the book: that while "conservatives" insist on rugged individualism and laissez fair economics, when they can get a piece of the action, they'll be the first ones in line to take it. And that's the depth of the hypocrisy of the allegedly conservative.

In any case, two words that I noticed were repeated again and again:

1) "anti-pluralist" I guess that's where the "Protestant" theme came from in the title. The conservatives struggled against Jews, Catholics, anyone representing any deviation from a pretty small segment of humanity. (Yes, there were occasional accessions to Catholics, on issues such as abortion, for example. But by and large they were rejected.).

2) Authority. Any time the prevailing, conservative movement was threatened, they appealed to "tradition" and its overwhelming theme "authority." It's interesting to see how such a concept can be used!

Now, I must confess that it's difficult to review this volume well without having taken extensive notes while reading it. There's a lot of material there. There are names I didn't cover in here, e.g., Sun Myung Moon, whose influence was referred to, and many others. Fortunately, as I've said, it's well written, and hard to put down. I cannot do it adequate justice in the space I'm allowed for a review. But it will grace my shelf as a reference book when I read similarly themed volumes in the future.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Serious Work of History, Neither Journalism nor Punditry May 9, 2009

By Roger D. Launius VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This history of the evangelical Christian movement in the twentieth century is an important contribution to understanding both the recent political arena and the culture wars. It approaches history with a decided present-tense interest in helping to explain current issues. Author Allan J. Lichtman, professor of history at American University in Washington, D.C., demonstrates how conservative religious traditions coalesced in the first half of the twentieth century around issues of morality and society ranging from marriage patterns to economic priorities.

The author's assertion that this was born out of the split between the modernists and the traditionalists is not new, but his positioning of the movement in the context of a larger pro-business, mainly Protestant, coalition of interests is path breaking. Moreover, the rise of intellectuals and financiers such as J. Howard Pew, Frank Gannett, the Du Ponts, William F. Buckley, and William Kristol gave power to the movement beyond its insular borders as never before in the last half century.

These various groups and individuals disagreed with each other on many issues but were united in their hatred of the modern welfare state put into place in successive Democratic administrations between the 1930s and the 1960s and built a network of organizations to resist what they considered the evils both of social engineering and federal power. They used oftentimes misplaced fears of immigration, race relations, and sexual politics as triggers to create powerful political organizations. "White Protestant Nation" offers a well-reasoned, excellently and entertainingly written history of the rise of conservative political power.