The Right

The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism

De: Matthew Continetti

Narrado por: Carl Sayles

A magisterial intellectual history of the last century of American conservatism

When most people think of the history of modern conservatism, they think of Ronald Reagan. Yet this narrow view leaves many to question: How did Donald Trump win the presidency? And what is the future of the Republican Party?

In The Right, Matthew Continetti gives a sweeping account of movement conservatism’s evolution, from the Progressive Era through the present. He tells the story of how conservatism began as networks of intellectuals, developing and institutionalizing a vision that grew over time, until they began to buckle under new pressures, resembling national populist movements. Drawing out the tensions between the desire for mainstream acceptance and the pull of extremism, Continetti argues that the more one studies conservatism’s past, the more one becomes convinced of its future.

Deeply researched and brilliantly told, The Right is essential for anyone looking to understand American conservatism.

©2022 Matthew Continetti (P)2022 Basic Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

“[A] sturdy account of the many divisions within modern conservatism… Rational, well thought out, and impeccably argued—of interest to all students of politics.”—Kirkus

“Matthew Continetti has earned his luminous reputation as the foremost contemporary chronicler of American conservatism’s path to today’s problematic condition. He traces conservatism’s rich intellectual pedigree, from the founders’ classical liberalism through twentieth-century conservatives’ responses to the challenges of progressivism. The result is a thinking person’s map for the road ahead.”—George F. Will, author of The Conservative Sensibility

“Matthew Continetti has written an instant classic, sure to become the essential one-volume history of modern American conservatism. Balanced and subtle, it offers an engaging combination of intellectual and political history that makes sense of the immensely complicated story of the Right.”—Yuval Levin, author of A Time to Build

A Comprehensive History of the Conservative Movement

Continetti hits all of the highs and lows of the conservative movement and its undercurrent of populism. He explores in detail every thread and strain of the right, from its anti communist roots to the ascent of the alt right. His epic project carefully articulates the competing agendas within the Republican Party, while effectively making a case for the soul of a true American conservatism.

A Lefty Reads The Right

It served its purpose, to inform, and it did. My view is that our American history is too young and too fluid to sustain the hard label of "conservatism and
the right" that the writer attempts to define. Better us all to do away with these labels and focus more on the legitimacy of the words of our Founding Fathers and our Constitution and pledge our allegiance to the same. Its easy to get confused when folk start promoting their own morphological interpretations of labels such as these.

Stunning Analysis placing the development of America's Right in historical context

Stunning analysis of an incredibly complex political movement. Continetti handles each topic with incisive analysis that cuts through political dissension, and gets to the heart of the matter, while informing and contextualizing brilliantly. No one can claim to understand the Right without having read this book.

Very informative

I really enjoyed the book. And I’m not cruel enough to give 4 stars for the speaker,

But the way he seemed to pronounce names like a computer was grating sometimes adding extra syllables. It was like there was no regard for how the person actually says their name

Author is Bill Kristol’s Son in Law

I like Matt and follow his work though I was not aware of his familial connection to Bill Kristol. Frankly, that explains a lot about how Matt relates to some of the impossibly broad subject matter of this book.

interesting

This is a pretty good book, but fairly focused on the knowledge and experience of the author.

So happy this book was written

I waited a long time for this book and it didn’t disappoint. The author does a great job detailing the history of American Conservatism. Anyone interested in political intellectual history should listen to this book

An academic history of the American "right"

Continetti aims to give a comprehensive account of the major players and events in conservative American politics from about the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. As a current member of the conservative intellectual establishment and the American Enterprise Institute, he is well-suited to the task. He inevitably focuses on presidential administrations including Eisenhower, Reagan, and Trump, as well as conservative "thought leaders" including William F. Buckley, Jr. and Rush Limbaugh. While the book is entirely about politics and the author clearly has strong political preferences, this is more of a history lesson than anything. Continetti largely avoids the sort of heavy-handed "analysis" you find in politicized spheres like talk radio, cable news, and editorials.

The author seems to have been motivated by the question: "how did Donald Trump happen?" To answer that question, he delves into a century of clashes between progressive, conservative, libertarian, and populist thought, mostly from the perspective of conservative intellectuals. We follow the banishment of conservatism through the New Deal era to the establishment of the National Review all the way to the January 6th riot. Ultimately, Continetti draws a populist, anti-establishment through-line roughly from Andrew Jackson to William Jennings Bryan to George Wallace to Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. By the end, Trump seems to be less of an aberration and more of a once-in-a-few-generations confluence of popular pushback to "excessively liberal" liberal democracy, mixed with an unusually strong cult of personality and the shamelessness of the social media era.

There is something in this book for everyone to dislike. Trump fans will inevitably see it as a creature of the establishment disparaging their hero. Progressives will be furious at the lack of soul-searching in response to decades of right-wing contact with racism, anti-semitism, and homophobia. Non-academics will find the references to Alexis de Tocqueville, Milton Friedman, and many others off-putting. Academics will find it devolves into relatively disorganized historical recitation without explicit corresponding analysis aimed at proving a central thesis.

Nonetheless, Continetti does an admirable job with a difficult topic. By largely avoiding partisan analysis, he is able to cover many contradictory strains of thought without getting bogged down in any particular one. It is exceedingly difficult to find clear-eyed, even-handed political discussion in today's heavily polarized era, especially from the right, and Continetti largely succeeds in providing such discussion here.

The narration is perfectly fine. A few words are mispronounced here or there (e.g. "co-relation" for "correlation"), but it's not frequent. This is the sort of book where the narrator should be heard and not seen. He too succeeds at this.

A Marriage as imperfect as ever

Matt Continetti provides a masterful exploration on the history of American conservativism stretching back to the 1920s. As conservativism has been shaped by populist inflections and institutional imperatives, the relationship between populism and conservativism has at times been strained, and may even be corrupted at this present time, but when they are in sync, there's no denying that conservativism's impulse to curtial liberalism's excesses has at times animated an energetic nexus of intellectuals, ideas, and politicians that has shaped American politics and life for the past century, and surely will again.

A thorough history of American conservatism

Even dyed-in-the-wool progressives should read this comprehensive history of the underpinnings of American conservatism, and how it has mutated over the decades. Written by a traditional conservative — not a fawning Trumpist — it contains analyses with which you may not agree, but you will undoubtedly learn a tremendous amount.