As Ronald Reagan declared, the conservative banner is one of bold, unmistakable colors, not “pastel shades.” Since World War II, the American conservative movement has changed the colors of the national political landscape. Here, in its own words, is the body of thought and rhetoric that has painted the movement’s banner. Award-winning authors Peter Schweizer and Wynton C. Hall have gathered an authoritative collection of speeches representing the modern conservative movement. Beginning with Whittaker Chambers’s 1948 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee and continuing through the speeches of such conservative icons as Barry Goldwater, Bill Buckley, Phyllis Schlafly, Ronald Reagan, and Barbara Bush, the editors assemble an all-star line-up of conservative thought. Newt Gingrich, champion of conservatism, said that, in this volume, “Peter Schweizer and Wynton Hall have captured the key moments in the emergence of modern conservatism.” Steve Forbes also praised this work as a "timely, much-needed reminder of what the movement is truly about." Without a doubt, Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement is a book that will interest anyone with a passion for politics, the spoken word, or history. The thirteen speeches in this volume powerfully capture the principles, images, and causes that constitute modern American conservatism. Drawing on such thinkers as Russell Kirk and Richard M. Weaver, Schweizer and Hall vividly illustrate the ideas that have moved the conservative movement from the margins of society to the citadels of power. An introduction to each speech explains the context in which it was first delivered and notes the impact of each statement on the movement and the nation. The perfect gift for those who value conservatism or seek to understand it, Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement offers food for thought and action. For historians, political scientists, and students of public communication, the book is an essential source for the ideas that have shaped American society since 1945.

As Ronald Reagan declared, the conservative banner is one of bold, unmistakable colors, not “pastel shades.” Since World War II, the American conservative movement has changed the colors of the national political landscape. Here, in its own words, is the body of thought and rhetoric that has painted the movement’s banner. Award-winning authors Peter Schweizer and Wynton C. Hall have gathered an authoritative collection of speeches representing the modern conservative movement. Beginning with Whittaker Chambers’s 1948 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee and continuing through the speeches of such conservative icons as Barry Goldwater, Bill Buckley, Phyllis Schlafly, Ronald Reagan, and Barbara Bush, the editors assemble an all-star line-up of conservative thought. Newt Gingrich, champion of conservatism, said that, in this volume, “Peter Schweizer and Wynton Hall have captured the key moments in the emergence of modern conservatism.” Steve Forbes also praised this work as a "timely, much-needed reminder of what the movement is truly about." Without a doubt, Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement is a book that will interest anyone with a passion for politics, the spoken word, or history. The thirteen speeches in this volume powerfully capture the principles, images, and causes that constitute modern American conservatism. Drawing on such thinkers as Russell Kirk and Richard M. Weaver, Schweizer and Hall vividly illustrate the ideas that have moved the conservative movement from the margins of society to the citadels of power. An introduction to each speech explains the context in which it was first delivered and notes the impact of each statement on the movement and the nation. The perfect gift for those who value conservatism or seek to understand it, Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement offers food for thought and action. For historians, political scientists, and students of public communication, the book is an essential source for the ideas that have shaped American society since 1945.

Creating Conservatism charts the vital role of canonical post–World War II (1945–1964) books in generating, guiding, and sustaining conservatism as a political force in the United States. Dedicated conservatives have argued for decades that the conservative movement was a product of print, rather than a march, a protest, or a pivotal moment of persecution. The Road to Serfdom, Ideas Have Consequences, Witness, The Conservative Mind, God and Man at Yale, The Conscience of a Conservative, and other mid-century texts became influential not only among conservative office-holders, office-seekers, and well-heeled donors but also at dinner tables, school board meetings, and neighborhood reading groups. These books are remarkable both because they enumerated conservative political positions and because their memorable language demonstrated how to take those positions—functioning, in essence, as debate handbooks. Taking an expansive approach, the author documents the wide influence of the conservative canon on traditionalist and libertarian conservatives. By exploring the varied uses to which each founding text has been put from the Cold War to the culture wars, Creating Conservatism generates original insights about the struggle over what it means to think and speak conservatively in America.

A U.S. senator, leading the fight against money in politics, chronicles the long shadow corporate power has cast over our democracy In Captured, U.S. Senator and former federal prosecutor Sheldon Whitehouse offers an eye-opening take on what corporate influence looks like today from the Senate Floor, adding a first-hand perspective to Jane Mayer’s Dark Money. Americans know something is wrong in their government. Senator Whitehouse combines history, legal scholarship, and personal experiences to provide the first hands-on, comprehensive explanation of what's gone wrong, exposing multiple avenues through which our government has been infiltrated and disabled by corporate powers. Captured reveals an original oversight by the Founders, and shows how and why corporate power has exploited that vulnerability: to strike fear in elected representatives who don’t “get right” by threatening million-dollar "dark money" election attacks (a threat more effective and less expensive than the actual attack); to stack the judiciary—even the Supreme Court—in "business-friendly" ways; to "capture” the administrative agencies meant to regulate corporate behavior; to undermine the civil jury, the Constitution's last bastion for ordinary citizens; and to create a corporate "alternate reality" on public health and safety issues like climate change. Captured shows that in this centuries-long struggle between corporate power and individual liberty, we can and must take our American government back into our own hands.

Separation of church and state is a bedrock principal of American democracy, and so, too, is active citizen engagement. Since evangelicals comprise one of the largest and most vocal voting blocs in the United States, tensions and questions naturally arise. In the two-volume Evangelicals and Democracy in America, editors Steven Brint and Jean Reith Schroedel have assembled an authoritative collection of studies of the evangelical movement in America. Religion and Politics, the second volume of the set, focuses on the role of religious conservatives in party politics, the rhetoric evangelicals use to mobilize politically, and what the history of the evangelical movement reveals about where it may be going. Part I of Religion and Politics explores the role of evangelicals in electoral politics. Contributor Pippa Norris looks at evangelicals around the globe and finds that religiosity is a strong predictor of ideological leanings in industrialized countries. But the United States remains one of only a handful of post-industrial societies where religion plays a significant role in partisan politics. Other chapters look at voting trends, especially the growing number of higher-income evangelicals among Republican ranks, how voting is influenced both by "values" and race, and the management of the symbols and networks behind the electoral system of moral-values politics. Part II of the volume focuses on the mobilizing rhetoric of the Christian Right. Nathaniel Klemp and Stephen Macedo show how the rhetorical strategies of the Christian Right create powerful mobilizing narratives, but frequently fail to build broad enough coalitions to prevail in the pluralistic marketplace of ideas. Part III analyzes the cycles and evolution of the Christian Right. Kimberly Conger looks at the specific circumstances that have allowed evangelicals to become dominant in some Republican state party committees but not in others. D. Michael Lindsay examines the "elastic orthodoxy" that has allowed evangelicals to evolve into a formidable social and political force. The final chapter by Clyde Wilcox presents a new framework for understanding the relationship between the Christian Right and the GOP based on the ecological metaphor of co-evolution. With its companion volume on religion and society, this second volume of Evangelicals and Democracy in America offers the most complete examination yet of the social circumstances and political influence of the millions of Americans who are white evangelical Protestants. Understanding their history and prospects for the future is essential to forming a comprehensive picture of America today.

Reaganism is a discourse of devotion and disqualification, combining a neoliberal negative theology of the market with a neoconservative demonization of opponents. Reagan’s personality cult shelters the aggressivity of a war of all against all by representing the market as a moralistic standard of perfection, a representation of goodness and freedom. In literary theory and criticism, a homologous valuative system centered itself on the canon, representing culture as a study of perfection. Paul de Man argued for the displacement of this positive moralistic reference, but his proposals ultimately replace it with a negative moralistic reference to literariness. De Man’s premises have been perpetuated in subsequent theory by persistent misrecognitions of dialectic as suspicious hermeneutics, of materialism as reference to materiality, and of demands for democratic equity as identity politics. Tracing this motivated reasoning through misreadings of Eve Sedgwick’s critique of conspiracy theory and Edward Said’s “secular criticism,” we are led back to the unexamined premises of Paul de Man’s negative moralism and the opportunistic competition of academic careerism.

The definitive, authorized biography of one of the most important, provocative, and visionary political figures of our time. In one way or another Newt Gingrich has been leading a revolution for most of his life. Citizen Newt is the definitive account of that struggle. Writing with the full cooperation of Speaker Gingrich and the players around him, New York Times bestselling author Craig Shirley captures the events, ideas, failures, and successes of Newton Leroy Gingrich—one of the most complex, influential, and durable political figures of our time. Returning to Gingrich’s childhood in Pennsylvania and his formative years as a young history professor, Citizen Newt moves through Gingrich’s first forays into politics and takes readers behind the scenes of the Congressman’s crucial role in the Reagan Revolution, his battles with George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and his masterly orchestration of 1994s “Gingrich Revolution” and the Contract with America, which catapulted him to national prominence and forever changed congressional and national politics. Drawing upon untold stories from Gingrich and those who know him best—political allies and opponents, Washington insiders and political iconoclasts, Capitol Hill staffers and colleagues—Shirley has crafted a fascinating, humorous, humanizing, and insightful account of a true American original.

The Pilgrims journeyed toward the New World with a distinct purpose in mind. They left behind a life dissatisfying to them and arrived with a vision of liberty and hope. They held within themselves the seeds of a nation exceptional in all of history. Their convictions paved the way for the colonists, who would eventually give form and substance to a government based on the truth of the ages. A unique nation-a nation under God-would arise and seize the God-given right to live free, offer opportunity and realize prosperity. But contrary to the settlers' and founders' principles, alien elements have arisen in recent years to challenge the American ideal and threaten the foundation of the republic. Forces foreign to the Constitution are producing radical changes in our cultural and political life, and "one nation under God" has become "one nation under siege." The Book and The Right examines those qualities that have made America exceptional, but that are endangered at the present time, and looks in detail at the causes that are putting her at serious risk. It appraises her current direction and stresses the steps she must take to return to the course of her originally chosen destiny. The Book and The Right addresses a subject long held taboo and goes to the heart of the issue for answers. The author draws on historical, theological, psychological and political data to pursue the truth and call America back to her roots. Maynard Miller holds degrees from Asbury College, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the University of Kentucky. He has been a psychotherapist, administrator and college teacher in the mental health/human service field. A frequent speaker and writer, he is a leader in national and international service projects. His previous book is The Face in the Mirror.

In the late 1970s, Hollywood producers took the published biography of Crystal Lee Sutton, a white southern textile worker, and transformed it into a blockbuster 1979 film, Norma Rae, featuring Sally Field in the title role. This fascinating book reveals how the film and the popular icon it created each worked to efface the labor history that formed the foundation of the film's story. Drawing on an impressive range of sources—union records, industry reports, film scripts, and oral histories—Aimee Loiselle's cutting-edge scholarship shows how gender, race, culture, film, and mythology have reconfigured and often undermined the history of the American working class and its labor activism. While Norma Rae constructed a powerful image of individual defiance by a white working-class woman, Loiselle demonstrates that female industrial workers across the country and from diverse racial backgrounds understood the significance of cultural representation and fought to tell their own stories. Loiselle painstakingly reconstructs the underlying histories of working women in this era and makes clear that cultural depictions must be understood as the complicated creations they are.

In Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice, James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters examine homeschooling’s history, its methods, and the fundamental questions at the root of the heated debate over whether and how the state should oversee and regulate it. The authors trace the evolution of homeschooling and the law relating to it from before America’s founding to the present day. In the process they analyze the many arguments made for and against it, and set them in the context of larger questions about school and education. They then tackle the question of regulation, and they do so within a rigorous moral framework, one that is constructed from a clear-eyed assessment of what rights and duties children, parents, and the state each possess. Viewing the question through that lens allows Dwyer and Peters to even-handedly evaluate the competing arguments and ultimately generate policy prescriptions. Homeschooling is the definitive study of a vexed question, one that ultimately affects all citizens, regardless of their educational background.