Beer Jeremy - American conservatism: an encyclopedia

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Mark C. Henrie

Anne E. Krulikowski

Gregory Wolfe

John Zmirak

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Laura Barrosse-Antle

Alexandria Chiasson

Alexandra Gilman

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Brian C. Anderson

Eugene Genovese

Daniel J. Mahoney

Wilfred McClay

Forrest McDonald

George H. Nash

AMERICAN

CONSERVATISM

An Encyclopedia

EDITED BY

Bruce Frohnen, Jeremy Beer, and Jeffrey O. Nelson

WILMINGTON, DELAWARE

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Copyright 2006 by ISI Books

ISBN: 978-1-932236-43-9

Published by ISI Books

Intercollegiate Studies Institute

3901 Centerville Road

Wilmington, DE 19807-1938

www.isibooks.org

Distributed by Open Road Distribution

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www.openroadmedia.com

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

N O encyclopedia of the size and scope of this one is the work of even a dozen people, let alone three. Since taking over this project in 2000, the editorsall at work at their full-time jobs and on numerous other side projectshave been necessarily and ably assisted by numerous interns, editorial assistants, designers, proofreaders, and others, not to mention the 250- plus contributors to the volume, many of whom gladly took on multiple entries in exchange for little or no pay.

We must first thank Gregory Wolfe for getting this volume up and running in the early 1990s and for continuing to assist in its completion after it was formally handed off to ISI. Indeed, this volume is no exception to the rule that everything has its history. Greg conceived of this work and was initially commissioned by Garland Publishers to edit an encyclopedia of the American Right, which was to be an explicit companion to the instructive and professionally compiled Encyclopedia of the American Left (1990, rev. ed. 1992). The scope of the project, however, proved overwhelming for one individual with no institutional support, and so Greg asked Jeff Nelson if he and ISI would be willing to take the project over. Believing ISI was the perfect home for such a workand encouraged to undertake it by ISIs president, T. Kenneth Cribb Jr., senior vice president H. Spencer Masloff, and its late executive vice president, John F. Lulves Jr. the editors began working on it in earnest at the turn of the new millennium. Needless to say, every entry already penned had to be revisited and most of them revised. In addition, the new editors undertook to adjust the conception of the project from an encyclopedia of the American Right to a reference work on American conservatism. At least two-thirds of the entries in the present volume were added, some previous ones deleted, and after much hard work the encyclopedia took its present form.

Besides Greg, perhaps no one worked harder on the myriad day-to-day tasks associated with pulling such a large project together than did Anne Krulikowski, who worked on the project at ISI from 2001 to 2003. Our colleagues Mark Henrie and John Zmirak took on difficult writing assignments and provided wise counsel on the shape of the volume, while various othersincluding interns Laura Barrosse-Antle and Alexandria Chiasson, former ISI Books managing editor Xandy Gilman, June Weaver, and Megan Muncyalso played key roles in bringing this encyclopedia to fruition. Sam Torode, with help from John Vella, provided the book with its elegant layout and photo illustrations, and Jennifer Connolly helped shepherd this volume through the printing process. We also thank the distinguished members of our editorial advisory board for their advice on entries, balance, and other matters.

For their crucial financial support of this volume, we thank Earhart Foundation and the Historical Research Foundation. Finally, we are grateful to all of the contributors for their good work and especially their patiencea virtue sorely tried at times, we know. James Person, Rob Waters, Max Schulz, and the late John Attarian deserve special thanks for diving in time and time again to the sizeable pool of work that lay before us back in 2001. This encyclopedia certainly would never have appeared without their efforts.

This volume is dedicated to John F. Lulves Jr., E. Victor Milione, and Henry Regnery: stewards of the Word, custodians of our heritage, and teachers who have shaped the lives of thousands of students in the knowledge and hope that each generation is a new people.

EDITORS INTRODUCTION

S INCE it emerged in the years following World War II, conservatism in America has been declared intellectually and politically victorious and deadmany times over. As a new, self-conscious intellectual movement, postwar conservatism was launched through the publication of groundbreaking books, including Friedrich Hayeks Road to Serfdom (1944), Richard Weavers Ideas Have Consequences (1948), and Russell Kirks Conservative Mind (1953); the establishment of new, opinion-shaping periodicals, such as Human Events (1944) and William F. Buckley Jr.s National Review (1955); and the formation of organizations such as the Foundation for Economic Education (1946) and the Young Americans for Freedom (1960). Nevertheless, conservatism in America still has been defined, for many, by its political rather than its intellectual fortunes: Barry Goldwaters dramatically unsuccessful 1964 presidential bid and Ronald Reagans equally dramatic but successful 1980 run for the presidency are usually portrayed as defining moments for American conservatism, with the first ironically paving the way for the second. Since the election of Reagan, the political ups and downs of the conservative movement in America have continued: the so-called Republican Revolution of 1994, for example, has left in its wake an ambiguous legacy, including the impeachment of a Democratic president, growing deficits, a war fought overseas in the name of democracy, and a splintering of the conservative movement.

Conservatisms mixed political fortunes, along with the often acrimonious debates that have persisted among the critics of postwar American society, including neoconservatives, paleoconservatives, traditionalists, libertarians, and those who simply call themselves conservatives, reveal a continuing crisis of identity among Americans on the political right. One reason for this crisis may be a lack of historical knowledge and perspective. This is too bad, for the most interesting intellectual debates in the last fifty years have arguably taken place not between conservatives and liberals but between adherents of different positions within the conservative camp. George Nashs Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 (revised ed., 1996) provides a masterful narrative history of conservatism, but there has as yet been no comprehensive treatment of the different elements of conservatism in all their conflicting and complementary variety. As Pepperdine University political theorist Ted V. McAlister has poinetd out, The historiography of American conservatism remains immature. For decades, the academic historical establishment largely ignored American conservatives or dealt with them as a sort of fringe group. Only after the surprising and enduring appeal of Ronald Reagan did most historians begin to take serious scholarly notice of self-proclaimed conservatives. Slowly, the historical literature is growing richer. But for now, the story of conservatism in America, as told by the academics, is fractured and inconclusive. This volume is intended to contribute to the ongoing effort to understand what it has meant and still meansto be a conservative in America.