Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America, 1950-1985
Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America, 1950-1985

Author: Patrick Allitt

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2019-01-24

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 150173315X

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At the end of World War II, conservatism was a negligible element in U.S. politics, but by 1980 it had risen to a dominant position. Patrick Allitt helps explain the remarkable growth of the contemporary conservative movement in the light of Catholic history in the United States. Allitt focuses on the role of individual Catholics against a backdrop of volatile cultural change, showing how such figures as William F. Buckley, Jr., Garry Wills, John T. Noonan, Jr., Michael Novak, John Lukacs, Thomas Molnar, Russell Kirk, Clare Boothe Luce, Ellen Wilson, Charles Rice, and James McFadden forged a potent anti-liberal intellectual tradition. Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America, 1950-1985 is much more than a history of conservative Catholics, for it illuminates critical themes in postwar American society. As Allitt narrates the interplay of liberal and conservative politics among Catholics, he unfolds a history both intricate and sweeping. After describing how New Conservatism was shaped in the 1950s by William F. Buckley, Jr., and an older generation of Catholic thinkers including Ross Hoffman and Francis Graham Wilson, Allitt traces the range of Catholic responses to the cataclysmic events of the 1960s: the election ofJohn F. Kennedy, the civil rights movement, the decolonization of Africa, Supreme Court decisions on school prayer, the war in Vietnam, and nuclear arms proliferation. He shows how the transformation of the Church prompted by the Second Vatican Council not only intensified existing divisions among Catholics but also shattered the unity of the Catholic conservative movement. Turning to the 1970s, Allitt chronicles bitter controversies concerning family roles, contraception, abortion, and gay rights. Next, comparing the work of John Lukacs, Thomas Molnar, Garry Wills, and Michael Novak from the 1950s through the 1980s, Allitt demonstrates how individual Catholic conservatives drew different lessons from similar contingencies. He concludes by assessing recent ideological shifts within American Catholicism, using as his test case the conservative resistance to the Catholic Bishops' 1983 Pastoral Letter on Nuclear Weapons. Offering new insight into the subtle interplay between religion and politics, Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America, 1950-1985 will be engaging reading for everyone interested in the postwar evolution of American politics and culture.

The Conservative Revolution
The Conservative Revolution

Author: Lee Edwards

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1999-07-23

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 0684844214

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The triumph of the conservative movement in reshaping American politics is one of the great untold stories of the past fifty years. At the end of World War II, hardly anyone in public life would admit to being a conservative, but as Lee Edwards shows in this magisterial work, in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, a small group of committed men and women began to chip away at the liberal colossus, and their descendants would scale the ramparts of power in the 1980s and 1990s. Not even the fall of Newt Gingrich has changed the indisputable fact that the movement has truly rewritten the rules of American political life, and the republic will never be the same. Edwards tells the stories of how conservatives built a movement from the ground up by starting magazines, by building grass-roots organizations, and by seizing control of the Republican party from those who espoused collaboration with the liberals and promised only to manage the welfare state more efficiently and not to dismantle it. But most of all he tells the story of four men, four leaders who put their personal stamp on this movement and helped to turn it into the most important political force in our country today: * Robert Taft, "Mr. Republican," the beacon of conservative principle during the lean Roosevelt and Truman years * Barry Goldwater, "Mr. Conservative," the flinty Westerner who inspired a new generation * Ronald Reagan, "Mr. President," the optimist whose core beliefs were sturdy enough to subdue an evil empire * Newt Gingrich, "Mr. Speaker," the fiery visionary who won a Congress but lost control of it By their example and vision, these men brought intellectual and ideological stability to an often fractions conservative movement and held the high ground against the pragmatists who would compromise conservative principles for transitory political advantage. And through their efforts and those of their supporters, they transformed the American political landscape so thoroughly that a Democratic president would one day proclaim, "The era of big government is over." Political history in the grand style, The Conservative Revolution is the definitive book on a conservative movement that not only has left its mark on our century but is poised to shape the century about to dawn.

American Catholic
American Catholic

Author: D. G. Hart

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2020-10-15

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1501751972

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American Catholic places the rise of the United States' political conservatism in the context of ferment within the Roman Catholic Church. How did Roman Catholics shift from being perceived as un-American to emerging as the most vocal defenders of the United States as the standard bearer in world history for political liberty and economic prosperity? D. G. Hart charts the development of the complex relationship between Roman Catholicism and American conservatism, and shows how these two seemingly antagonistic ideological groups became intertwined in advancing a certain brand of domestic and international politics. Contrary to the standard narrative, Roman Catholics were some of the most assertive political conservatives directly after World War II, and their brand of politics became one of the most influential means by which Roman Catholicism came to terms with American secular society. It did so precisely as bishops determined the church needed to update its teaching about its place in the modern world. Catholics grappled with political conservatism long before the supposed rightward turn at the time of the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. Hart follows the course of political conservatism from John F. Kennedy, the first and only Roman Catholic president of the United States, to George W. Bush, and describes the evolution of the church and its influence on American politics. By tracing the roots of Roman Catholic politicism in American culture, Hart argues that Roman Catholicism's adaptation to the modern world, whether in the United States or worldwide, was as remarkable as its achievement remains uncertain. In the case of Roman Catholicism, the effects of religion on American politics and political conservatism are indisputable.

A World after Liberalism
A World after Liberalism

Author: Matthew Rose

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2021-08-03

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0300263082

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A bracing account of liberalism’s most radical critics, introducing one of the most controversial movements of the twentieth century In this eye-opening book, Matthew Rose introduces us to one of the most controversial intellectual movements of the twentieth century, the “radical right,” and discusses its adherents’ different attempts to imagine political societies after the death or decline of liberalism. Questioning democracy’s most basic norms and practices, these critics rejected ideas about human equality, minority rights, religious toleration, and cultural pluralism not out of implicit biases, but out of explicit principle. They disagree profoundly on race, religion, economics, and political strategy, but they all agree that a postliberal political life will soon be possible. Focusing on the work of Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, Francis Parker Yockey, Alain de Benoist, and Samuel Francis, Rose shows how such thinkers are animated by religious aspirations and anxieties that are ultimately in tension with Christian teachings and the secular values those teachings birthed in modernity.

Educating for Liberty
Educating for Liberty

Author: Lee Edwards

Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Published: 2021-06-08

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 9781610171670

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The Intercollegiate Studies Institute was founded half a century ago to defend traditional liberal education in American colleges and universities against the onslaught of leftist ideologues. With its myriad of lectures, journals, fellowships, books, seminars, and mentoring programs, ISI is today the educational pillar of the conservative movement and the leading source of information about a free society for the many students and teachers who reject the post-modernist zeitgeist. In this absorbing, fast-paced book, Lee Edwards, the pre-eminent historian of the conservative movement, details how ISI has inspired the minds of collegiate conservatives for decades and prepared them to defend the American and Western patrimony in public office, research organizations, the media, and the academy. You will meet in Educating for Liberty the remarkable men and women behind ISI and their vision for renewing higher education in America. Long before the advent of "compassionate conservatism," ISI promoted a robust humane conservatism through the works of Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk, and others. The Institute has also served as an open forum for traditionalists, neoconservatives, and classical liberals to debate the nature of American conservatism. Edwards tells the dramatic story of ISI's original focus on combating socialism, its resistance to the cultural crisis of the 1960s and the 1970s, its battle against political correctness in the 1980s and 1990s, and its answer to the renascent anti-Americanism on college campuses after 9/11. ISI's unwavering mission from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism has been to lay the intellectual and cultural foundation for ordered liberty in America and to help the West triumph in the clash of civilizations. The founders of ISI hoped their work would give rise to a better future for their children's children. In this superb history, Edwards recounts the rich fruits of their unremitting labors but cautions that the struggle to transmit the cultural and intellectual heritage of America and the West is unending.