The Historical Origins and Contemporary Dynamics of Conservatism in the United States: Anticommunism, the New Class Critique, and the Environment

Abstract

This review article offers a critical assessment of three recent books on postwar conservatism in the United States. The broad themes of these works – anticommunism, the new class critique, and opposition to environmentalism – are used as a basis to review the extant literature and to analyse the historical trajectory of the conservative movement. Although American conservatism is generally a unified political force, important ideological divisions remain both among and between libertarians and social conservatives. These divisions are imperative for understanding the movement today and offer promising lines of future scholarship. Doody C (2013) Detroit’s Cold War: The Origins of Postwar Conservatism. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Horowitz RB (2013) America’s Right: Anti-Establishment Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party. Cambridge: Polity Press. Layzer JA (2012) Open for Business: Conservatives’ Opposition to Environmental Regulation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.