In this timely book, Jerome Himmelstein offers a new interpretation of the growth of conservatism in American politics. Tracing the New Right of the 1970s and 1980s back to the Old Right of the 1950s, Himmelstein provides an interpretive map of the political landscape over the past decades, showing how conservatives ascended to power by reconstructing their ideology and building an independent movement.

Jerome L. Himmelstein is Associate Professor of Sociology at Amherst College.