Unraveling the Right ─ The New Conversatism in American Thought and Politics

Viewing the modern right as more than a passing fad for state-anxious individuals, Amy Ansell and the contributors in this volume treat the current conservative movement as an important effort to contextualize and rearticulate the truths taken for granted in the American liberal tradition.Each author in this volume provides a contribution to an alternative perspective on the relevance of today’s conservatism in American thought and politics. Based on a common recognition that the 1994 victory represented much more than the temporary infiltration of right-wing extremists or the public’s spontaneous combustion of reactionary sentiments but rather twenty-plus years of diligent, conscientious organizing on the part of new actors on the right, the authors here agree that the American right wing continues to be a force to be reckoned with. Despite the apparent failure of the Republican Revolution and subsequent reelection of Clinton to office in 1996, the political and sociocultural forces that contributed to the 1994 victory are still very much at play, demanding that those interested in reversing the rightward drift of political opinion and government policy thoroughly understand the processes at work if another swing to the right is to be successfully combated.

Amy E. Ansell is assistant professor and associate dean for International Programs at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Her other forthcoming book is New Right, New Racism: Race and Reaction in the United States.