George H. Nash made his mark as a historian with the 1976 publication of The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, a book that remains indispensable as one of the few scholarly volumes to take postwar conservatism seriously as a philosophical (and not merely political) force. Reappraising the Right (I once worked for ISI Books but had no involvement with this book) serves as a postscript to that earlier work. It collects 32 essays on individual conservatives (ranging from Richard Weaver to John Chamberlain to Ronald Reagan), trends within the Right (such as the growth of think tanks), and the prospects for conservatism. Herbert Hoover, of whom Nash wrote a three-volume biography (actually only two were published, though the third volume was apparently written) receives extended treatment, as does the topic of Jews and the American Right.
Nash is first, if not foremost, a meticulous researcher who has spent years mining the archives of his subjects, from such overlooked right-wing intellectuals such as Willmoore Kendall and Francis Graham Wilson to the 31st president of the United States. Yet Nash is most significant as the scribe who recorded the conservative movement’s creation myth. The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 is not only an impressive compendium of research, it is also an interpretive lens through which the conservative movement understands itself. Before 1976, conservatives had long told a story of uniting disparate right-wing elements—religious traditionalists, free-market libertarians, and ex-Communists turned anti-Communists—into a coherent movement. Nash’s book gave this account the weight of historical scholarship. He retold the story conservatives had been telling about themselves, and in the process he thickened the narrative into something convincing—a usable past.
“Reappraising the Right is not a manifesto,” Nash announces in his introduction, “It is a work of scholarship and reflection intended for readers of all persuasions.” Yet it is also, at least in part, a catechism: “perplexed conservatives especially may decide to turn to its pages,” the author writes, “in search not of instant formulas for success but of something deeper and more sustaining: enhanced perspective on who they are, where they came from, and what they believe.” What readers will actually find in this volume is not a reappraisal of the right, but reaffirmation and reiteration of the narrative employed in The Conservative Intellectual Movement Since 1945.
