No Right Turn: Conservative Politics in a Liberal America

David T. Courtwright

Published by Harvard University Press 2010

No Right Turn

Conservative Politics in a Liberal America

David T. Courtwright

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674058446

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Reviews

Crisply written, colorful, and often out-of-the-box original, this is a bold, sweeping look at the last four decades of American history.
-- Gil Troy, author of Leading from the Center

A first-rate book--energetic, insightful, and a treat to read. Courtwright describes how moral conservatives joined with economic conservatives to form a powerful Republican coalition, only to discover a fundamental illusion: the Republican bus headed to market square with only an occasional detour (drugs, crime, welfare) to church street. This well-told story does the fantastic subject full justice.
-- James Morone, author of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History

Crisply written, colorful, and often out-of-the-box original, this is a bold, sweeping look at the last four decades of American history.
-- Gil Troy, author of Leading from the Center

Professor Courtwright's book is quite simply the best political history of the era from Nixon to the present. In lively prose, armed with a mountain of fresh research, including several interviews with key players, Courtwright convincingly argues that American political culture since the 'sixties' is nothing if not perplexing. He demonstrates that, although the 'moral right' entered the political arena with a vengeance, it failed to reshape the national culture due to the pervasiveness of countercultural values, which had been sopped up by the unstoppable forces of consumer capitalism. Yet, Courtwright also shows that where the moral right failed, the economic right succeeded--that contemporary American life is dominated by both cultural and economic libertarianism, the twin legacies of the boomer generation.
-- Andrew Hartman, author of Education and the Cold War

There is much to admire here...No Right Turn is a wonderful read. Courtwright engagingly profiles figures from Clare Boothe Luce to Johnny Carson. He has gone to all the archives, interviewed all the right people, and thought deeply about his findings...He tells his story with plenty of fresh twists and turns.
-- Laura Kalman American Prospect

Unlike many historians of conservatism, who stop with the election of Ronald Reagan as if it were the end of the story, Courtwright takes us up to today. His book makes the case that there has been no real conservative revolution in American politics.
-- Kim Phillips-Fein Bookforum

Marvelously idiosyncratic.
-- Alan Wolfe New Republic online

As a critique of U.S. politics and culture since the 1960s, No Right Turn is both thorough and a lively read.
-- M. N. Green Choice

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
1. How to Think about the Culture War Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Like It Was When I Was a Boy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
3. Overcome Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
4. Twenty Percent of What the Nuts Want Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
5. Cheerleaders for the Rev Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
6. Babe in Christ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
7. Act Right Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
8. Robert Bork’s America Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
9. Like Battling the Devil Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
10. Referendum on the 1960s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	222
11. The Illusion of Conservatism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	321
Illustration Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	325

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 352

eBook

Published: February 1, 2011
ISBN: 9780674058446