Messengers of the Right

Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics

By: Nicole Hemmer

Narrated by: Maria Rose

Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's Summary

From Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to Glenn Beck and Matt Drudge, Americans are accustomed to thinking of right-wing media as integral to contemporary conservatism. But today's well-known personalities make up the second generation of broadcasting and publishing activists. Messengers of the Right tells the story of the little-known first generation.

Beginning in the late 1940s, activists working in media emerged as leaders of the American conservative movement. They not only started an array of enterprises - publishing houses, radio programs, magazines, book clubs, television shows - they also built the movement. While these media activists disagreed profoundly on tactics and strategy, they shared a belief that political change stemmed not just from ideas but from spreading those ideas through openly ideological communications channels.

In Messengers of the Right, Nicole Hemmer explains how conservative media became the institutional and organizational nexus of the conservative movement, transforming audiences into activists and activists into a reliable voting base. Messengers of the Right follows broadcaster Clarence Manion, book publisher Henry Regnery, and magazine publisher William Rusher as they evolved from frustrated outsiders in search of a platform into leaders of one of the most significant and successful political movements of the 20th century.

The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press.

©2016 University of Pennsylvania Press (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic Reviews

"Joins the must-read list for any student of the history of conservatism, the history of modern media, or indeed the history of the polarized political culture in which we find ourselves today." (David Greenberg, author of Republic of Spin)

"Read Nicole Hemmer's superb new book, and you'll never see 'liberal mainstream media' in the same way again. ...This is political history - and American history - at its finest." (Margaret O'Mara, University of Washington) 

Very important content, very poor narration

Fascinating story of the first generation of conservative media marred by poor narration. Words and names mispronounced distract from this work of scholarship. At one point words and even sentences are repeated, thanks to poor editing. Narrator’s voice even sounds different as different recording sessions spliced together.