Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus

Rick Perlstein

PublicAffairs, Mar 17, 2009 - History - 704 pages

Acclaimed historian Rick Perlstein chronicles the rise of the conservative movement in the liberal 1960s. At the heart of the story is Barry Goldwater, the renegade Republican from Arizona who loathed federal government, despised liberals, and mocked "peaceful coexistence" with the USSR. Perlstein's narrative shines a light on a whole world of conservatives and their antagonists, including William F. Buckley, Nelson Rockefeller, and Bill Moyers. Vividly written, Before the Storm is an essential book about the 1960s.

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User Review  - john.cooper - LibraryThing

2016 is not the first year Republican presidential politics seemed batsh*t crazy. Once before we had a nominee whom pundits and analysts considered an unqualified lunatic; who caused foreign observers ...

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User Review  - queencersei - LibraryThing

In 1964 the political establishment of both parties were terrified that conservative firebrand Barry Goldwater would sink the Republican party. The Republican establishment tried to rally behind ...

About the author

Rick Perlstein is the bestselling author of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan and Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. His reviews, reporting, and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Observer, New Republic, Washington Post, London Review of Books, Columbia Journalism Review, the Nation, and the New Yorker. He has received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for independent scholars. He lives in Chicago.

www.rickperlstein.org

Bibliographic information

• Title: Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
• Author: Rick Perlstein
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2009
• ISBN: 0786744154, 9780786744152
• Length: 704 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Political; History / United States / 20th Century; Political Science / Political Ideologies / Conservatism & Liberalism