Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, conservatism possessed a vibrancy that resulted from spirited intellectual inquiry and open debate. However, in the years leading up to the 2008 elections, this energy seemed to fade. It was as if the conservative movement became less concerned with ideas and more concerned with the preservation of political power. In Conservatism Redefined, Patrick Garry examines how Conservatives dug themselves into this hole, and how they can climb out. However, unlike many conservative pundits, Garry does not propose a simple, -rediscover our roots- credo. Instead, Conservatism Redefined reexamines and renews conservative ideology, explaining how the classical ideals of conservatism can be employed in new ways to address the concerns of citizens across the ethnic, generational, and economic spectrum. Conservatism in America is currently mired in its worst crisis since the 1960s. To be sure, the crisis accompanied the declining public opinion of the Bush presidency and the resurgence of liberalism and large, aggressive government in a time of crisis. But, as Patrick Garry explains, this does not mean that conservatism has been defeated as an ideology, it means it must be redefined.

This book is a lively intellectual history of a small circle of thinkers, especially, but not solely, Harry Jaffa and Walter Berns, who challenged the "mainstream" liberal consensus of political science and history about how the American Founding should be understood. Along the way they changed the course of the conservative movement and had a significant impact on shaping contemporary political debates from constitutional interpretation, civil rights, to the corruption of government today. Most importantly, these thinkers explain the deep reasons for patriotism—why we should love America not just because it is our country, but because it is a free and just country.

After reaching high levels of public popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, political conservatism has become beset with criticism and disillusionment. As demonstrated by the 2008 election results, political conservatism has been blamed for an unpopular Iraq war, an economy nose diving into recession, and a barrage of high profile instances of corporate misbehavior. This crisis in the ideological identity of and public confidence in conservatism is partly due to conservatism itself. Contrary to the intellectual vibrancy that characterized the 1980s and 1990s, political conservatism in recent years has become complacent and dormant. It has been more focused on simply protecting political power than on reexamining its philosophical principles and policy prescriptions. Because of this failure to continually reexamine, conservatives have allowed their ideology to slip back into various ruts caused by certain historical deviations from the conservative creed. These deviations, beginning in the early twentieth century, mischaracterized conservatism as a special-interest defender of the wealthy and corporate class. The deviations also allowed conservatism to be miscast as a political creed that advocates aggressive U.S. intervention in the affairs of foreign nations. Perhaps because of all its successes, as well as the political influence it has been able to achieve, political conservatism in America has somewhat lost its foundational bearings. Its basic principles and ideological identity have been lost amidst the various political maneuverings and issues associated with partisan politics. Consequently, conservatives need to get their ideology back to a firm foundational setting, so as to allow it to once again provide a strong beacon of guidance to American society. In this book, Patrick Garry attempts to provide a clear definition and ideological identity to conservatism—an identity that not only connects conservatism to the past, but allows it to position itself for the challenges of the future. With a concise simplicity, Garry provides a definition of conservatism that relies on two fundamental propositions. Garry also argues that the focus of conservatism needs to be redirected toward the interests of the poor and disadvantaged. As Garry argues, it is conservatism and not liberalism that offers the best hope for the poor and disadvantaged to prosper in America. This new focus of conservatism will allow conservatism to flourish as a governing ideology.

What Is Conservatism? (1964) is a conservative classic—as relevant today as it was half a century ago. Just what is conservatism? Many people are groping for answers, especially as conservatives seem to be retreating into factions—Tea Partiers, traditionalists, libertarians, social conservatives, neoconservatives, and so on. But this illuminating book shows what unites conservatives even as it explores conservatism’s rich internal debate. Edited by Frank S. Meyer, who popularized the idea of “fusionism” that became the basis for modern American conservatism, What Is Conservatism? features brilliant essays by twelve leading conservative thinkers and spokesmen, including: • F. A. Hayek, Nobel Prize–winning economist and author of The Road to Serfdom • William F. Buckley Jr., founder of National Review and the man perhaps most responsible for the rise of the modern conservative movement • Russell Kirk, whose seminal book The Conservative Mind gave the conservative movement its name • M. Stanton Evans, author of the conservative movement’s central credo, the “Sharon Statement” (1960) In a foreword to this new edition, #1 New York Times bestselling author and National Review contributing editor Jonah Goldberg explains the profound influence of What Is Conservatism? on conservative thought and the book’s relevance today.

For nearly a decade, Michael Lind worked closely as a writer and editor with the intellectual leaders of American conservatism. Slowly, he came to believe that the many prominent intellectuals he worked with were not the leaders of the conservative movement but the followers and apologists for an increasingly divisive and reactionary political strategy orchestrated by the Republican party. Lind's disillusionment led to a very public break with his former colleagues on the right, as he attacked the Reverend Pat Robertson for using anti-Semitic sources in his writings. In Up From Conservatism, this former rising star of the right reveals what he believes to be the disturbing truth about the hidden economic agenda of the conservative elite. The Republican capture of the U.S. Congress in 1994 did not represent the conversion of the American public to conservative ideology. Rather, it marked the success of the thirty-year-old "southern strategy" begun by Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon. From the Civil War to the civil rights revolution, the southern elite combined a low-wage, low-tax strategy for economic development with a politics of demagogy based on race-baiting and Bible-thumping. Now, Lind maintains, the economic elite that controls the Republican party is following a similar strategy on a national scale, using their power to shift the tax burden from the rich to the middle class while redistributing wealth upward. To divert attention from their favoritism toward the rich, conservatives play up the "culture war," channeling popular anger about falling real wages and living standards away from Wall Street and focusing it instead on the black poor and nonwhite immigrants. The United States, Lind concludes, could use a genuine "one-nation" conservatism that seeks to promote the interests of the middle class and the poor as well as the rich. But today's elitist conservatism poses a clear and present danger to the American middle class and the American republic.

Presents forty essays, speeches, and other documents on conservatism or by conservatives, spanning 1930 to the turn of the century, including works by Seward Collins, Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Jr., Irving Kristol, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and others.