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Customer Ratings: 4.5 (from 34 reviews) |
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Product Description
A bold and astute narrative history of conservatism's climb and one of the best-reviewed books of 2001.
Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm tells the story of the rise of the conservative movement in the liberal 1960s -- a story that, until this book, had never been told. The figure at the heart of the story is, of course, Barry Goldwater, the handsome renegade Republican from Arizona who loathed the federal government, despised liberals on sight, and mocked "peaceful coexistence" with the USSR. But Perlstein's narrative shines a light on a whole world of conservatives and their antagonists, including William F. Buckley, Nelson Rockefeller, and Bill Moyers. Vividly and thrillingly written, Before the Storm is already recognized as an essential book about the 1960s.
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Amazon.com Review
Not every presidential election is worth a book more than a quarter-century after the last ballot has been counted. The 1964 race was different, though, and author Rick Perlstein knows exactly why. That year, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Democrat, trounced his opponent, Barry Goldwater, a Republican senator from Arizona, in a blowout of historic proportions. The conservative wing of the GOP, which had toiled for so long as the minority partner in a coalition dominated by more liberal brethren, finally had risen to power and nominated one of its own, only to see him crash in terrible splendor. It looked like a death, but it was really a birth: a harrowing introduction to politics that would serve conservatives well in the years ahead as they went on to great success. Conservatives learned a lot in 1964: It was learning how to act: how letters got written, how doors got knocked on, how co-workers could be won over on the coffee break, how to print a bumper sticker and how to pry one off with a razor blade; how to put together a network whose force exceeded the sum of its parts by orders of magnitude; how to talk to a reporter, how to picket, and how, if need be, to infiltrate--how to make the anger boiling inside you ennobling, productive, powerful, instead of embittering. These were practical lessons that anybody in politics must pick up. For conservatives, the rough indoctrination came in 1964, and Perlstein (who is not a conservative) tells their story in detail and with panache. Before the Storm is not a history of conservative ideas (for that, read The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, by George Nash), but a chronicle of how these ideas began to matter in politics. The victory of Ronald Reagan in 1980--to say nothing of Newt Gingrich in 1994 and George W. Bush in 2000--might not have been possible without the glorious failure of Barry Goldwater in 1964. As Perlstein writes, "You lost in 1964. But something remained after 1964: a movement. An army. An army that could lose a battle, suck it up, regroup, then live to fight a thousand battles more." --John J. Miller |
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| Product Details |
| Author: |
Rick Perlstein |
| Binding: |
Paperback |
| Dewey Decimal Number: |
973 |
| EAN: |
9780809028580 |
| ISBN: |
0809028581 |
| Label: |
Hill and Wang |
| Languages: |
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| List Price: |
| Amount: |
1700 |
| Currency Code: |
USD |
| Formatted Price: |
$17.00 |
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| Manufacturer: |
Hill and Wang |
| Number Of Items: |
1 |
| Number Of Pages: |
688 |
| Package Dimensions: |
| Height: |
129 |
| Length: |
832 |
| Weight: |
168 |
| Width: |
560 |
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| Product Group: |
Book |
| Publication Date: |
2002-04-15 |
| Publisher: |
Hill and Wang |
| Studio: |
Hill and Wang |
| Title: |
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus |
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| Customer Reviews |
Customer Rating: 3
Review Date: 2008-04-30
2 out of 2 found this review helpful.
Summary: Overly analytical yet highly interesting view of Barry Goldwater and the rise of modern conservatism
I found this book to be on many accounts a very interesting account of the birth of modern conservatism and the atmosphere of the U.S. in 1964 which lead to its emergence. Still, I found that the author went out of his way to paint the birth as a negative thing, obvious by the title, and something that has harmed the country more than helped it.
The portrayal of Barry Goldwater the man is very negative. He is often portrayed as garrulous bordering on rude when the fact was that Goldwater was plainspoken and made no apologies for who he was or what he thought. Heaven forbid that today. Also, the grassroots organizations that helped to place Goldwater at the head of the ticket in 1964 as executing a type of putsch over preferred candidates. Yes the candidates were preferred but not by Republican rank and file. Lastly, very little attention is given to the failures of the Democrats or the fact that the long grouping of Southern Democrats and northern machine bosses, neither of whom were very democratic, were falling apart when faced with voter dissatisfaction.
Overall this is a long book and it does a great job of describing a point in time. Be prepared to deal with the author's biases against both Goldwater and those who brought him to power. |
Customer Rating: 1
Review Date: 2008-04-17
12 out of 28 found this review helpful.
Summary: In Your Heart, You'll Know This is Shallow
I was really looking forward to "Nixonland" -- 'though not anymore -- and in anticipation I thought I'd try Pearlstein's Goldwater book, mainly because of all the great Amazon reviews, and because I'm a junkie for presidential campaign books.
Wow, what were the other reviewers looking at when they read "Before the Storm"? Let's just say that Pearlstein's "depth" makes Teddy White seem like Suetonis. In Pearlstein's background as to the causes of the rise of the American Right to total and complete dominance, there is nothing about 1950s culture and the sexualization of what was pretty neutral stuff pre-rock and pre-TV, nothing about TV itself, nothing about the rise of the military-industrial-intelligence complex, nothing about the Dulles Brothers(et al), nothing about the vast nationalist movements across the world, nothing about the militarization of the society and culture, nothing about the rise of the Western Cowboy economies(space, oil, weapons, big agriculture etc), nothing about class, nothing about capitalism itself(the word is not even mentioned in a book of almost 700 pages), and nothing about the slow takeover of media by the far right.
There is a lot of mention, however, of Barry Goldwater's brawny arms, magnificent chin, and deep glistening tan.
An amazingly stupid book, supposedly written by a "leftist" in hopes of understanding the right. Which I guess means to become as dumb as they are. At that, Pearlstein has magnificently succeeded. |
Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2007-08-18
4 out of 5 found this review helpful.
Summary: A brilliant narrative history of the underdog American conservative movement of the 1960s
~Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus~ is a sweeping narrative history of the American conservative movement in the 1960s. The author Richard Perlstein, a liberal journalist, actually offers a fairly balanced and objective view of the American Right in the 1960s. He doesn't quite picture the American conservative as the racist Archie Bunker character from Norman Lear's All in the Family television show, but rather sympathetically reveals their concerns and convictions, which were deep rooted in the American psyche. Conservatives were animated by a love of country, a principled anti-communism that was sometimes paranoid, and a desire for fiscal restraint in government particularly at the federal level. Many hoped to repudiate the New Deal of FDR. Perlstein leaps right into the streets of conservative bastions like Orange County, California and Dallas, Texas, and offers a snapshot of the conservative movement in microcosm. With clarity, he communicates their concerns and response to the troublesome and insecure world around them. Against the backdrop of the beleaguered conservative movement of the 1960s were the tumults of radical Leftist activists in and out of the government. The Great Society of the Lyndon Johnson administration marked the ascendancy of welfare-statism in the United States, which proved especially baneful to principled conservatives and constitutionalists.
Perlstein's trenchant commentary is well-researched and offers a bombastic flare which captures the spirit of the insurgent, albeit beleaguered conservative movement. Against the backdrop of liberal dominated 1960s, the conservative movement in the 1960s solidified into well-organized constituency which eventually propelled the Reagan Revolution forward in 1980. While the political tides propelled an activist centralized government in Washington, D.C. to the helm, there was a deep-rooted libertarian streak to American conservatives which desperately desired to fight tooth and nail against political consolidation and central planning.
Perlstein chronicles the failed Goldwater campaign of 1964, and illustrates how its mass appeal to free markets and constitutionally limited government rallied throngs of conservatives under the American banner. The powerful Rockefeller dynasty shifted all their fortunes in favor of the Johnson bid for the Presidency, and labored against Goldwater every step of the way. The Lyndon Johnson presidential campaign itself shamelessly exploited the heightened Cold War anxieties and insecurities in the wake of the tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy, Jr. This sensationalism was encapsulated in television advertisement which pictured a little girl in a field plucking a daisy, and then a brilliant flash of light followed by an atomic detonation. Johnson was always viewed by the American Right with suspicion. Johnson, a racist Texas politician by instinct and an opportunist, pandered to the worst socialist instincts of the Civil Rights movement with his Great Society proposal, and he made no qualms about the reality it was a vote-buying scheme.
Perlstein sympathetically elucidates upon some of the anxieties felt on the Conservative Right. The anxieties were multi-faceted and owed to racial and social strife, as well as the heightened Cold War tension with the communist world following the Cuban Missile Crisis. There was grave apprehension that elements of the American Left and the Civil Rights movement were conciliatory to the Soviets, or worse yet, treasonous pawns of Moscow. Herein, we see an erudite profile of the various factions of political activists on the Right from the Young Americans for Freedom to the more conspiratorial minded members of the John Birch Society. The Right lacked cohesiveness and men like President Eisenhower and William F. Buckley were viewed by some as trojan horses on the political Right. The conservative movements began to emulate the mass-organization of their antagonists on the Left. Groups like the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) were very articulate and erudite in the quality of scholarship they produced. Both defended the free-market economy and constitutionally-limited government with extraordinary intellectual rigor. While Yippies and student radicals were protesting on college campuses, articulate conservative activists like Phyllis Schlafly and Robert Welch pandered to the concerns of American conservatives. They pressed for repeal of New Deal policies and sounded alarms about communism and the emerging feminist movement. A former G-Man Dan Smoot who left the FBI, warned tirelessly of subversive plots from Moscow. Other enigmatic voices came and went. As pamphleteers and propagandists, activists on the Right told prescient tales of communist subversion in our midst. Given the radicalism of the Left from the Black Panthers to the SDS, some of their fears were certainly warranted; but some of their conspiratorial speculations often proved to be unfounded.
Perlstein stumbles from time to time, but overall this is a quality work. It is well-researched and possessed of extraordinary clarity and a meticulous quality that makes one wonder that it is possible for an outsider to the conservative movement to put such a monumental work together. |
Customer Rating: 5
Review Date: 2007-05-12
4 out of 4 found this review helpful.
Summary: An important story, well told
Rick Perlstein has done a magnificent job telling one of the most important political stories of our time: the triumphant journey of American conservatism from the political fringes to the center of power. Or at least the opening chapters of that story: Perlstein focuses on the doomed 1964 presidential campaign of conservative icon Barry Goldwater, a short-term setback that, in the prescient words of William F. Buckley, "planted seeds of hope, which will flower in a great November day in the future.'' Although Perlstein writes from a left-wing perspective, he is scrupulously fair. Goldwater emerges as a principled, decent, somewhat simple-minded man, baffled and often disturbed by the intensity of his supporters. Perlstein clearly admires the passion and resourcefulness of Goldwater's early backers such as Clif White. He doesn't hesitate to expose the hard-ball tactics Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats used against Goldwater in '64; young Bill Moyers comes off as especially Machiavellian. Sometimes Perlstein's narrative is a bit jarring, as he struggles to smooth over the ups and downs of political campaigns. On page 280, for instance, Perlstein writes that Nelson Rockefeller "knocked them dead in New Hampshire.'' By the next page, Rockefeller's "popularity was plummeting, his chances of (success) remote.'' Similarly, the Goldwater campaign sometimes comes across as an unstoppable force; at others like the fringe effort it proved to be on election day.
But that's a quibble. I learned a lot from this book. I never before realized the extent to which the money and venom of anti-union industrialists helped get movement conservatism started. I hadn't realized how early - pre-1964 -- Republicans started making inroads in the South, exploiting the white backlash against civil rights. I enjoyed many vignettes, including one on Lady Bird Johnson's courageous campaign trip across a hostile South. Perlstein is unsparing toward the era's elite political reporters, blinded by their own biases and comfy assumptions, who failed to see the movement emerging right before their eyes. Even after 516 pages of Perlstein's thorough reporting, intelligent analysis and fine story-telling I still can't really understand the conservative worldview. I'm a little like Adlai Stevenson, mystified when confronted by an unhinged rightwing protester. "What is wrong?'' he asked plaintively. "What do you want?'' Why did they see communist plots everywhere and a society lurching toward doom? Why did they overlook the violence and injustice in the South and see civil rights legislation as the first step toward a fascist dictatorship? I just don't get it.
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Customer Rating: 4
Review Date: 2006-10-13
1 out of 3 found this review helpful.
Summary: Super-Dense Book
This book was an excellently written portrayal of presidential politics in the early 60's. Short of actually being there, "Before the Storm" gives a fully-developed experience of the time. Well done! |
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