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Title: Suburban Warriors : The Origins of the New American Right by Lisa McGirr ISBN: 0-691-09611-2 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 21 January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Good, but not great
Comment: McGirr's book traces the rise of what I would call the (white, middle-class) suburban right and the Christian right, beginning in the early 60s. The new right coalesced around anti-Communism, laissez faire capitalism, states' rights and local government, the "traditional" family, Christian values, individual economic responsibility, and low taxes.
It was the suburban Christian right that first brought these views together. McGirr's is a "bottom up" analysis that begins with the grass roots social base of the suburban Christian right, using Orange County as a prototypical case study. She also examines the interplay of grass roots leaders, rank and file members, regional business elites, and national intellectual and political leaders. Barry Goldwater, who ran for President in 1964 against Johnson, was an early exemplar of new right views. However, his strong opposition to the Civil Rights acts won him the lower South and, along with his virulent anti-Communism, helped him lose the rest of the country.
The suburban Christian right shed its virulent and conspiratorial anti-Communism directed at domestic enemies; south-eastern politics moved away from the New Deal order and shed legal segregation and overt biological racism; they all joined their Christian and conservative forces and voila -- Ronald Reagan became president.
The book doesn't delve into how the suburban right teamed up with south-eastern conservatives, but their shared Christianity, shared social conservatism, and shared opposition to civil rights, busing, affirmative action, etc. makes it fairly easy to guess what that part of the story in general looks like. However, McGirr's would be a better book if she examined some of these connections, at least briefly. This what makes it good but not great.
Post-script: Today, the cold war is over and Bush has combined the Christian right and neo-conservative militarism (of the Project for the New American Century variety).
Rating: 3
Summary: Rhetorical, but ok
Comment: I had to read this book for a history class. It provides enough incite on the origin of conservatism in Orange County, but to me, she overemphasizes her status as a historian. Instead of telling one point just once, she repeats it again in another segment, which, as a reader, I already knew because she said it before. She is non-biased in her approach of the conservative uprooting, yet she does seem to make them out to look like the enemy rather than a large group of people that were encouraging enrollment for causes they believed in. I recommend it to anyone who likes to read the word "Knott" over and over again.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent History Lesson -- Wake-Up Call for America/World
Comment: The author gives accurate accounts of historical events, which, as the title reveals, did lead to an explosion of ultra-concervatism in America. The similarities to an uprising of the "majority" in depression era Europe are transparent. Rationalization of racial discrimination and segregation, along with many other subtle (yet presnt) injustices are a trade mark of "Christian Concervatism", which clearly (if denyingly) embraces white supremacy.
McGirr is particularly good at pointing out certain ironies that undercut the Conservative agenda. For instance, she notes that Orange Country was and is anti-tax (anti-egalitarian, anti-collectivist, anti-communist, anti-Federal government interference, anti-fair housing), but that the boom it enjoyed in the 60s was fueled primarily by federal defense spending. The Rugged Individualist, Boot-Stapping Entreprenuerial Businessman was in many ways beholden for his economic success on government expenditures. More recently, Orange County, following it's own free-market, low/anti-tax philosophy went backrupt due to investments in esoteric stock market products, investments the County felt forced to make because of budget shortfalls.
This book, like all other literature exposing the flaws of extremisms (especially extreme concervatism), either through satire (Al Franken), comedy (Mel Brooks) or factual, award winning literary works (Michael Moore), will add to the balance of available information. History often repeats itself, and thus is frequently forwarned or foretold by visionary writers who can decipher the writings on the wall. Lisa McGriff is one of them.
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Title: A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America by Lizabeth Cohen ISBN: 0375407502 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 21 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Making a New Deal : Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 by Lizabeth Cohen ISBN: 0521428386 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 25 October, 1991 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The Origins of the Urban Crisis by Thomas J. Sugrue ISBN: 0691058881 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 13 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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Title: American Crucible : Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century by Gary Gerstle ISBN: 0691102775 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 05 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Long Time Gone: 60S America Then and Now by Alexander Bloom ISBN: 0195125150 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: April, 2001 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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