1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910814207803321

Autore

Mattson Kevin <1966->

Titolo

Rebels all! : a short history of the conservative mind in postwar America / / Kevin Mattson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Brunswick, N.J., : Rutgers University Press, c2008

ISBN

1-281-77641-6

9786611776411

0-8135-4510-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (188 p.)

Collana

Ideas in Action

Disciplina

320.520973

Soggetti

Conservatism - United States - History - 20th century

Conservatism - United States - History - 21st century

United States Politics and government 1945-1989

United States Politics and government 1989-

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Party of Ideas? -- 1. The First Generation: Apocalyptic Rebels with a Cause -- 2. The Big Chill That Set Fires -- 3. Postmodern Conservatism, the Politics of Outrage, and the Mindset of War -- Conclusion: When Extremism Becomes a Virtue -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author

Sommario/riassunto

Do you ever wonder why conservative pundits drop the word “faggot” or talk about killing and then Christianizing Muslims abroad? Do you wonder why the right’s spokespeople seem so confrontational, rude, and over-the-top recently? Does it seem strange that conservative books have such apocalyptic titles? Do you marvel at why conservative writers trumpeted the “rebel” qualities of George W. Bush just a few years back? There is no doubt that the style of the political right today is tough, brash, and by many accounts, not very conservative sounding. After all, isn’t conservatism supposed to be about maintaining standards, upholding civility, and frowning upon rebellion? Historian Kevin Mattson explains the apparent contradictions of the party in this fresh examination of the postwar conservative mind. Examining a big



cast of characters that includes William F. Buckley, Whittaker Chambers, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Kevin Phillips, David Brooks, and others, Mattson shows how right-wing intellectuals have always, but in different ways, played to the populist and rowdy tendencies in America’s political culture. He boldly compares the conservative intellectual movement to the radical utopians among the New Left of the 1960's and he explains how conservatism has ingested central features of American culture, including a distrust of sophistication and intellectualism and a love of popular culture, sensation, shock, and celebrity. Both a work of history and political criticism, Rebels All! shows how the conservative mind made itself appealing, but also points to its endemic problems. Mattson’s conclusion outlines how a recast liberalism should respond to the conservative ascendancy that has marked our politics for the last thirty years.