The Other Side of the Sixties
304 pages, 6 x 9
Paperback
Release Date:01 Jun 1997
ISBN:9780813524016
The Other Side of the Sixties
Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics
Rutgers University Press
What were young conservatives doing in the 1960s while SDS and SNCC were working to move the political center to the left? The Other Side of the Sixties offers a gripping account of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), an organization that became a leading force in promoting conservative ideas and that helped lay the groundwork for today's conservatism. John Andrew has mined unique archival material to document YAF's efforts to form a viable organization, define a new conservatism, attack the liberal establishment, and seize control of the Republican party, all while battling voter hostility and internal factionalism. The author also uncovers the Kennedy administration's use of the IRS to subvert YAF and other right-wing organizations through tax audits and investigations. By painting a more balanced portrait of political thinking in the sixties, Andrew offers a new and much needed look at the ideological atmosphere of a vibrant decade.
Comprehensive, dispassionate, and useful.
A fascinating account of a too long overlooked aspect of the 1960s: the counterattack of AmericaÆs young conservatives who battled the left courageously and ultimately won the war.
Professor AndrewÆs book fills a gaping hole in the social/political history of the sixties. He tells us now of the spirited movement of young people that peaked in the election of Ronald Reagan.
There are good histories of post-WW II conservative thought such as George H. NashÆs The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, since 1945 (CH, Oct Æ76), but there has long been a need for more serious scholarship on postwar American conservative movements. Andrew (history, Franklin Marshall College) expertly fills this need for one movementùYoung Americans for Freedomùwhich, as he points out, was the most controversial youth movement in US politics in the first half of the 1960Æsà.Andrew is especially sharp in providing a rewarding look inside YAF in these years, explaining its organizational dynamics, its leadership and their interpersonal conflicts, and the factional struggles over distinguishing YAF from both liberal Republicans and John Birchers.
Andrew makes a significant contribution to sixtiesÆ historiography by refocusing scholarly and public attention on the activities of conservative youth during that tumultuous decade.
John Andrew, professor of history at Franklin & Marshall College, is author of Rebuilding the Christian Commonwealth: New England Congregationalists and Foreign Missions and From Revivals to Removal: Jeremiah Evarts, the Cherokee Nation, and the Search for the Soul of America.
The origins of the "new right"
The republican party, 1960, and the struggle over "modern republicanism"
The Sharon Conference and the Founding of YAF
The thrill of treason
Divisions in conservative ranks
Attacking the new frontier
JFK and the right wing
Taking on the G.O.P
YAF and the crusade for conservatism in 1964
The republican party, 1960, and the struggle over "modern republicanism"
The Sharon Conference and the Founding of YAF
The thrill of treason
Divisions in conservative ranks
Attacking the new frontier
JFK and the right wing
Taking on the G.O.P
YAF and the crusade for conservatism in 1964
