Right-wing critics of American conservatism
By: George Hawley, University Press of Kansas
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 366
ISBN-13: 9780700621934
Subjects: Radicals; Conservatism; Right and left (Political science)
Description: "The American conservative movement as we know it faces an existential crisis as the nation's demographics shift away from its core constituents - older white middle-class Christians. It is the American conservatism that we dont know that concerns George Hawley in this book. During its ascendancy, leaders within the conservative establishment have energetically policed the movements boundaries, effectively keeping alternative versions of conservatism out of view. Returning those neglected voices to the story, Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism offers a more complete, complex, and nuanced account of the American right in all its dissonance in history and in our day. The right-wing intellectual movements considered here differ both from mainstream conservatism and from each other when it comes to fundamental premises, such as the value of equality, the proper role of the state, the importance of free markets, the place of religion in politics, and attitudes toward race. In clear and dispassionate terms, Hawley examines localists who exhibit equal skepticism toward big business and big government, paleoconservatives who look to the distant past for guidance and wish to turn back the clock, radical libertarians who are not content to be junior partners in the conservative movement, and various strains of white supremacy and the radical right in America. In the Internet age, where access is no longer determined by the select few, the independent right has far greater opportunities to make its many voices heard. This timely work puts those voices into context and historical perspective, clarifying our understanding of the American right - past, present, and future"--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-338) and index.
Table of contents: title: The twilight of the old right and the birth and rise of the American conservative movement; title: Defining conservatism's boundaries: a history of conservative purges; title: Small is beautiful: localism as a challenge to left and right; title: Godless conservatism: the challenge of the secular right; title: Ready for prime time? The mainstream libertarians; title: Enemies of the state: radical libertarians; title: Nostalgia as a poltical platform: the paleoconservatives; title: Against capitalism, Christianity, and America: the European new right; title: Voices of the radical right: white nationalism in the United States; title: Conclusion: the crisis of conservatism.