Nancy Beck Young. Two Suns of the Southwest: Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, and the 1964 Battle between Liberalism and Conservatism.

Abstract

Nancy Beck Young is not the first historian to recognize the 1964 presidential election as a watershed in the history of modern American politics. The contest between Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson has been central to just about every study of partisan realignment, liberalism, or modern conservatism published during the past three decades. Goldwater’s status as a prophet of the New Right, despite the irony of his massive rejection at the polls in 1964, is well known and well chronicled. At the same time, scholars (and a host of liberal partisans) have long contemplated the tragic ironies of Johnson’s tenure in the White House: millions of voters rejected the conservative Goldwater in 1964, favoring instead Johnson’s vision for a “Great Society,” not to mention what many assumed was a safer, less reckless option for stable world leadership. Within a few years, however, Johnson’s untenable commitment to the mistake of the...