Right face : organizing the American conservative movement 1945-65 /

Utilizing archival and secondary sources, Bjerre-Poulsen (American Studies, Copenhagen Business School) provides an excellent overview of the political emergence of American conservatism. After summarizing conservative reaction against New Deal policies, the author chronicles the early efforts of the "fusionists" to reconcile the traditional conservatism of thinkers such as Russell Kirk with libertarian free market views. Next he examines conservatives' attempts to deal with the internal and external communist threat. These debates stimulated the rise of the publisher Henry Regnery and the emergence of the journal Human Events. Later, William F. Buckley Jr. established National Review as the flagship publication for the many strands of conservative thought. The author then describes the methods the people at National Review and other conservatives used to found the New York Conservative party and the campus-based Young Americans for Freedom. Ensuing chapters detail how these people, led by F. Clifton White, convinced Barry Goldwater to run for president and analyze that election and its aftermath. More recent varieties of conservatism are treated briefly in the epilogue. Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand conservative politics and contemporary America. ^BSumming Up: Essential. General readers and upper-division undergraduates and above. R. Heineman Alfred University