Dad History

  Lately, I have found my historical interest gravitating towards American political history, specifically that of the conservative movement of the 20th century. I believed my knowledge of the topic was serviceable, yet incomplete, in comparison to the more accessible history of the American left that one naturally receives reading about the New Deal or the tumult of the mid century. The rise of Barry Goldwater in the 1960s and the culmination of the Reagan presidency two decades later were what I understood to be the conservative movement in its entirety. Something rather impactful, but short lived, before it matured into something else.  What I uncovered through reading Matthew Continetti’s The Right is that the modern conservative movement has been one hundred years in the making, highly variable, and intellectually robust. While Goldwater and Reagan conservatism did not stay “pure” for all too long, what came before and after is very much a part of American conservatism’...