George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 **** 1/2

The title says it all: Nash gives an epic history of the conservative movement from 1945 to 1975, with a postscript from 2006. He focuses on the ideas of conservatism rather than its political successes and failures. His protagonists are the likes of William Buckley, Russell Kirk, and Milton Friedman, not Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.

Nash shows how the movement is a coalition of partially incompatible strands: originally libertarianism, traditionalism, and anti-Communism, joined later by neoconservatism and the religious right. Libertarians disagree with traditionalists about individualism (natural rights versus natural law) and with anti-Communists about foreign policy; traditionalists can be more comfortable with government programs than the other two; and so on. But they all fundamentally disagree with some aspect of the liberal program.

The book explicitly lays out the philosophical underpinnings of each conservative approach, and shows how they reject liberal ideas that are often taken for granted in modern America. Even some conservatives suspect that America is fundamentally a liberal country. The history also illuminates the reason for some conservative obsessions, such as with the South and the Constitution. (Conservatives are drawn to defend the pre-Civil War South and African colonialism for reasons that are separate from the racism that unfortunately comes wrapped up in these subjects.)

Fascinating and thought-provoking, if a little repetitive.