The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

Nash gives a history of postwar American conservatism as an intellectual project. He identifies three strands that formed the movement: classical liberals or libertarians such as Hayek and Mises, traditionalists such as Kirk and Weaver, and anticommunists such as Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham and Frank Meyer. In the 1950s and 1960s these groups, which disagreed on much, were brought together by opposition to communism abroad and to the growth of the state at home.

He follows the institutions that made this possible, such as National Review, which William F. Buckley founded in 1955, and the later arrival of neoconservatives and the religious right. Nash explains fusionism as the effort to bridge the first two strands.

The book is scholarly and written from within a sympathetic perspective, and later editions have added chapters.

Why it matters

It remains the standard history of the movement, and it helps readers make sense of present arguments on the right, which often replay these old tensions. Without it, labels like libertarian, traditionalist and neoconservative can seem arbitrary.

About the author

George H. Nash (born 1944) is an American historian and biographer who wrote his Harvard dissertation on conservative thought and then published it as this book. He later became a leading biographer of Herbert Hoover, writing a multivolume life. The book has been reissued by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute with a new preface.

Who should read it

Readers who want to understand where today's conservative movement came from.