The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America

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Summary: European Oversimplifications and Stereotypes
Review: This book is deeply flawed. It does a good job of identifying the individuals and organizations (for example, the think tanks) that make up the American Right, but it frequently oversimplifies, sometimes in a partisan way, the complexities of American foreign and domestic politics. Sadly, one occasionally gets the impression one is reading something written by Michael Moore.

Consider, for example, the following quote from Chapter 8 "With Us or Against Us: The Right and the War Against Terror:" "The neocons' gloomy view of the world led to their first solution -- the need for America to take a more unilateralist course. This preference was widely shared on the Right; indeed, the neocons were arguably only adding fancy theories to things that Bush and Cheney felt in their gut."

First of all, no serious student of American foreign policy should ever resort to using a cartoon-like oversimplification like "the neocons' gloomy view." Secondly, the implication that unilateralism is to be associated exclusively with the American Right is simply false. Consider the more balanced statement from James Mann's "The Rise of the Vulcans:" "The Clinton administration distanced itself from the United Nations and the concept of collective security following the disastrous operation in Somalia in 1993. It conducted a large-scale massive military intervention in Kosovo without UN approval. ... In short, while Democratic leaders often accused the Republicans of unilateralism, the truth was that the Clinton administration too gave far less weight to principles of collective security than had America's leaders from the 1940s through the 1980s."

There are other embarassments. All of Chapter 5 "For Texas, Business, and God," reveals less about George W. Bush and Texas than about European fantasies about cowboys and the Wild West. Consider the following amusing passage: "When [President Bush] declared war on Iraq, there was no anguishing about ends and means: the decision made, he went out on the lawn to play with his dog. Davy Crockett and the rest of the Alamo band would have been proud of him." The portrayal of the President as a latter day Davy Crockett pulling the ears of Old Yeller is as embarassing a stereotype as, say, the stereotype of the Chinese as "inscrutable Kungfu masters."

This book was meant to be an explanation of the American conservative movement to Europeans. Unfortunately, instead of closing the gap of understanding between the two continents, it will simply reinforce many European misconceptions about the American Right.

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Summary: Exactly what's needed in current political discussion
Review: This book is precisely the product you'd expect from two editors at the world's finest newsmagazine: a thoughtful, balanced, and informative work on a major political topic. The Right Nation is exactly the kind of book that is almost nonexistant in current American politics, and I'm hoping that the authors will be back out with another book very soon.

Above all, the book is about analysis, and it fulfills that mission admirably. Others have complained, and fairly, about the lack of deep history in this book. But the historical tracing of the conservative movement does the job, providing the key players and ideas for the uninformed, and it does it in an entertaining manner. The real meat is the dissection of the conservative movement and the GOP, and the book shines here. Micklethwait and Wooldridge clearly delved into the inner workings of the movement and provide an outstanding roadmap to the people, places, and ideas that make it function. The careful consideration of this movement from the outside (from the liberal side and abroad) only adds to the layers, and gives the book value far beyond students of American politics. As is the authors' intention, The Right Nation is also a good window into American society as a whole, and how its more conservative (by their thesis) nature interacts with the world

The up and down side to The Right Nation is that reads like one massive article out of The Economist (which it essentially is; check the footnotes and acknowledgements), right down to the authors' habit of creating numerical lists for everything imaginable. This is wonderful in that the book is well-sourced, organized, and reads in a fast pace with managable chunks of material. On the other hand, it can feel a tad recycled and hits dry spots. This is especially true for political junkies, who will have heard a lot of the facts and figures the authors throw into their analyses and be bored by a lot "convential wisdom"-type statements. On the whole, though, this book is a wonderful addition to current political discourse, and is worth reading by Americans and foreigners alike.

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Summary: Outstanding Insight into the American Conservative Movement
Review: This is a fantastic book. Written by two reporters from "The Economist" it takes a fair, objective and well researched look at both the conservative movement in America and why our country is prone to such conservativism. A book of this quality and insight could only be written by two people outside of our system and these gentlemen delivered almost flawlessly.

The book begins with a history lesson of how what it means to be a Republican by focusing on the first family of Republicanism, the Bushes. Senator Prescott Bush was a much different Republican from his son, GWH Bush, who is a much different Republican from his son, GW Bush. The book reviews the trends and influences that made the men the way they are. The next chapter focuses on the birth of modern American conservative, starting with the creation of the National Review, the first installation in the conservative infrastructure. The centerpiece is the '64 Goldwater campaign which yanked control of the Republican party from the North East and placed it in the West. Indeed, every Republican President since then has been a Westerner.

The book goes through how the conservative infrastructure was created, from the magazines to the think tanks. It delves into why America is so receptive to the conservative message, when in most of the Western World, the politics are much more liberal. It briefly touches on the rise of conservative clubs on college campuses and goes deeper into how the right mobilizes its foot soldiers for the cause. And it also looks at how the right has so effectively destroyed liberalism as a governing philosophy in the United States.

The best work is done in forecasting what shape the movement will take in the future. It looks at the natural inconsistencies found in any large movement, such as those between the more moral conservatives of the South and the more libertarian conservatives of the West. It looks at the areas that these groups have in common and the issues that could drive them apart.

"The Right Nation" is a very well thought out work which is both critical and complimentary at appropriate times. It also has many amusing quotes and anecdotes that makes a book of this subject matter a very enjoyable read. Regardless of how you feel about the conservative movement, you should read this book if you are interested in politics in America. It gives great insight into the power, depth and reach of the movement itself, and America at large.


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Summary: de Tocqueville Would Have Been Proud
Review: This is a very good book about the rise and present shape of conservatism in America -- the political Right, the current Republican party. It is written by two Englishmen who are resident in America as top-level correspondents for "The Economist" magazine. As Brits, they stand outside the two great tribes of American politics, and their day job also requires them to background their biases and be good reporters. Thus it is that this is one of the very few books on our current politics that escews name-calling and rigged rhetoric. It is neither a dreary screed of right-wing triumphalism nor left-wing alarm, but simply the truth as its authors see it.

And it's fun. There are portraits aplenty in here of the great and the humble in modern right-wing politics. The current scene is masterfully drawn, and how we got here is cleanly and gracefully told. Mickelthwaite and Wooldridge make the point that the excesses of the liberal establishment, that had its way essentially from the New Deal through the Great Society, awoke the sleeping giant of conservatism. Finally, with startling speed and effectiveness the Right has invented institutions from which flow a torrent of ideas, created an army of personalities and footsoldiers to push them, and built a ruthless political machine to embody them. Whatever your politics, you need this book. It tells an important story, with its inspiring, sordid, and contradictory sides, that no one on the Right would want to miss, and no one on the Left can afford to.