From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism

From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism. By Joseph E. Lowndes. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, c. 2008. Pp. [xii], 208. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-300-12183-4.)

Using "discursive" language as an analytical tool, political scientist Joseph E. Lowndes examines the ways southern and northern conservatives between the 1940s and 1970s sidestepped the troublesome issue of race to move the nation rightward (p. 159). Rather than describing a backlash against the radical forces of 1960s liberalism, Lowndes charts the long-term development of the Right and the establishment of a racism-free brand of conservatism that laid the foundation for the modern Republican Party. His principal interest is the southern takeover of the Republican Party. The author assumes that the success of conservatism, a term he never defines, erupted from the dedicated work of a few prominent thinkers and politicians. The leading figures are, in fact, the only conservatives in Lowndes's story.

The uniqueness of conservatism may be traced to the role of race in fashioning alliances between northern and southern conservatives as well as...