The neoconservative revolution : Jewish intellectuals and the shaping of public policy / Murray Friedman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Friedman, Murray, 1926-2005.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--United States--Politics and government.

Jews.

Jews--Intellectual life.

United States.

Politics and government.

Conservatism--United States--History--20th century.

Conservatism.

History.

Jews--Intellectual life--20th century.

United States--Politics and government--1945-1989.

Physical Description:

v, 303 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Summary:

This book, which will come as a surprise to many educated observers and historians, suggests that Jews and Jewish intellectuals have played a considerable role in the development and shaping of modern American conservatism. The focus is on the rise of a group of Jewish intellectuals and activists known as neoconservatives, who began to impact on American public policy during the Cold War with the Soviet Union and, most recently, were influential in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. It presents a portrait of the life and work of the original small group of neocons, including Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Sidney Hook. This group has grown into a new generation who operate as columnists; in conservative think tanks such as the Heritage, and the American Enterprise Institute Foundation, at colleges and universities; and in government in the second Bush administration, including such lightning rod figures as Paul D. Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and Elliot Abrams. The book proposes the neocons have been so significant in reshaping modern American conservatism and public policy that they constitute a neoconservative revolution, as the book's title suggests.

Contents:

Jews and the making of the cosmopolitan culture

The premature Jewish neoconservatives

Forgotten Jewish godfathers

The liberal civil war

The modernization of American conservatism

The liberal meltdown

The rise of the neoconservatives

Neoconservatives and the Reagan revolution

Nicaragua : the Cold War comes to this hemisphere

Irving Kristol and a new vision of capitalism

The neoconservative assault on the counterculture

Jews and the Christian Right.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-289) and index.

ISBN:

0521836565

OCLC:

56317885