A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars

Abstract

There is no shortage of great books about post-1960s American political culture. Andrew Hartman's history of the culture wars ranks among the best. Hartman manages to transcend the worldviews of his subjects, other than to confirm the existence of the culture wars as a distinct moment in American history. His is not the final word on that moment. It is, however, among the most reliable accounts thus far. For Hartman, the culture wars occurred in the shadow of the 1960s—that is, in response to the resonant “liberation” motif of that era. The still-potent belief that culture holds the key to social and political transformation began on the left. Ultimately, though, forces on the right embraced the cultural turn for their own purposes. Neoconservatives (Cold War liberals turned liberation-phobes) styled themselves as the catalytic converters in this process, and they play an outsized but justifiable role in Hartman's narrative. Among other things, they allowed conservatives to assume “ownership of the rhetoric of [racial] colorblindness” (p. 113). To be sure, such moves only achieved political impact once the newly christened Christian Right came on board. The resulting coalition was fraught on matters such as education, as neoconservatives favored “standards” and traditionalists favored localism or parents’ rights.