Barry Goldwater (Hardcover)

~ Professor Robert Alan Goldberg (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Barry Goldwater was probably the most important loser in the history of American presidential elections. Although Lyndon Baines Johnson easily defeated him in the 1964 race, Goldwater fundamentally reshaped politics in the United States. As biographer Robert Alan Goldberg shows, Goldwater helped Republicans cut their demographic and financial ties to the Northeast and pushed their influence to the South and West. More important, however, he ushered in the modern conservative movement as a genuine political force.

Goldberg, a professor of history at the University of Utah, writes as a political liberal who holds deep sympathies for Goldwater. During his 1964 campaign, a popular Goldwater slogan was: "In your heart, you know he's right." Goldberg isn't trying to convince readers of this, but it's hard to come away from his book without thinking he still could teach his country a thing or two. --John J. Miller --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Former Arizona Republican senator Barry Goldwater, a leader of the extreme conservative movement in the 1960s and '70s, has recently attacked the religious right while championing abortion rights and advocating federal legislation to protect homosexuals against job bias. Many liberals have welcomed Goldwater into their fold, but the author, himself a liberal and a history professor at the University of Utah, points out that Goldwater's bedrock conservative principles emphasizing personal freedom underlie his latest stances. A longtime advocate of limited government and individual responsibility, Goldwater still urges a federal withdrawal from social programs, opposes gun control and believes that women should leave the workplace and return home to raise their children. This balanced, solid biography, written with Goldwater's cooperation (but unauthorized), traces his rugged individualism to his Western frontier roots, to his formative experiences in the Depression and as a gutsy cargo pilot in WWII and to his Jewish immigrant grandfather, Michel Goldwasser, self-made entrepreneur and refugee from Russian Poland. The author details Goldwater's behind-the-scenes role in supporting President Reagan's anticommunist crusade in Nicaragua and his overhaul of the U.S. military chain of command through major legislation in 1986. Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 478 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (September 27, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300062613
• ISBN-13: 978-0300062618
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,469,688 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive Goldwater, April 8, 2000

By	Jim Breitinger (Salt Lake City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Barry Goldwater (Paperback)

Goldberg's biography is the definitive work on Mr. Conservative, Barry Goldwater. Essential reading for anyone interested in Goldwater and an excellent reminder that Goldwater's brand of conservatism is a far cry from the conservatism of the religious right. The book is a balanced view of the man from Arizona written by a scholar with an engaging and highly readable writing style.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating account of a major conservative figure, August 21, 2004

By	Mark Klobas (Tempe, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Few people have had the impact on the American political scene that Barry Goldwater made in his career. Born into one of the wealthiest families in Arizona, his embrace of the Western myth and his opposition to increased role the government played in economic management after the Great Depression (one influenced by his experience managing the family's chain of local department stores) combined to shape his political philosophy. After service in the Army Air Force in World War II, he entered politics and became a leader of the effort to "clean up" the Phoenix city government - though Goldberg writes that, as most of the members of the effort themselves acknowledged, the charges of civic corruption that led to their victory were largely overstated.

Upon winning election to the United States Senate in 1952, Goldwater quickly emerged as one of its most prominent conservatives, becoming chair of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee just three years later. The role played to Goldwater's gift for marketing, and he quickly developed a national following among thousands of Americans. He benefited as well from the emergence of a new radical right, fueled by growing concerns over race and embodied in organizations like the John Birch Society. With the publication of his 1960 book Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater cemented his position as the leading figure of the movement, their natural candidate for the presidency.

Goldwater got his chance in 1964. With the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Nelson Rockefeller, politically damaged by his divorce and remarriage, Goldwater was the front-runner. He accepted the nomination at a convention that Goldberg terms "the Woodstock of American conservatism," with a speech that galvanized his supporters. Goldwater's nomination became a pivotal moment in the history of the Republican Party. While Goldwater himself was defeated in the subsequent campaign by Lyndon Johnson (who succeeded in depicting Goldwater as an unstable reactionary ideologue), his candidacy signaled the party's ideological, social, and political shift away from its traditional base in the Northeast towards its new home in the South and West.

Yet Goldberg sees Goldwater's candidacy as the high-water mark of his role as a conservative leader, as he began moving away from the ideas of the radical right and towards a more libertarian style of conservatism. Though he returned to the Senate in 1968, his support for Nixon's opening of relations with China and his backing of Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan in their race for the Republican nomination in 1976 led many former Goldwater supporters to turn on their former champion. By the 1980s, Goldwater had become a leading opponent of the growing role of the religious right in the Republican Party, and he remained an uncomfortable gadfly after his retirement from the Senate in 1987 by speaking out against many of the actions of the party he did so much to change.

Goldberg's biography offers a balanced examination of the senator's life and career that is welcome. He avoids the hagiography of earlier works, which distorted or excluded some of the details of Goldwater's life so as to better fit their image of a conservative paradigm. Though such information as Goldwater's financial donations to Planned Parenthood and his personal efforts to support civil rights (which he disguised so as not to alienate voters in the South) may call his reputation for honesty and bluntness into question, the result is a better understanding of the man and his role in the rise of American conservatism after the Second World War.

9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative, August 28, 2002

By	"avon345" (Virginia Beach, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This biography is well written and researched. Unfortunately, it becomes painfully clear at times that the author, Robert Alan Goldberg, is writing from the Left. The book's strengths lie in his discussion of Goldwater's family history and upbringing. On the other hand, Goldberg's rants on Goldwater's racial complacency get old after a couple chapters, and do not relent. Goldberg essentially accuses Goldwater of turning a blind eye to racism, but then defends him by saying he himself was not racist.

Of course Goldwater was not racist. He did not "accomodate" racism, either...Goldwater just wasn't a "Civil Rights" activist like Goldberg, but then again, who is Goldberg to judge a man such as Barry Goldwater? When he sticks to the facts, this book is good. When he strays, it is awkward. Overall, though, its at least worth borrowing from the local library.