The Right Side Of The Sixties Analysis

The Right Side of the Sixties: Reexamining Conservatism’s Decade of Transformation. Edited by Laura Jane Gifford and Daniel K. Williams. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan. 2013. vi. 277 pp.) Laura Jane Gifford and Daniel K. Williams provide twelve essays that expand the scope beyond reactions against liberalism or the leading politicians within the conservative Right. Conservatives returned to their grassroots, redefined what they believed, and direct changes within which produced a new type of Conservative, one proclaiming itself as colorblind, anti-secular, and worldly (4). With their new voice Conservatives gained control of the Republican Party covering issues such as race, economics, religion, and foreign policy

Working from the shadows during the sixties, conservatives created a strong base that emerged to be the majority within the United States government at the dismay of the liberals. The first three essays discuss the politics of race in regards to the conservative movement. At the beginning of the sixties, conservatives were on opposite sides of the issue of race, while Southern segregationists continued to promote the racist ideology which slowed the civil rights movement outside of the Southern region. With racial violence in the sixties, grassroots groups such as the Citizen’s Council of Mississippi, a white segregationist group aided the move from the regional segregation to the “color-blind” ideology of conservatism (21-82). The next two essays discuss the shaping of conservative ideology. It was evident that conservatives lacked any credible message or the forums necessary to publicize their ideas. Throughout the essays within the book, grassroots agencies appear which aid in bringing the transformed ideology of the conservatives as an attractive option to large numbers of Americans. One way that Conservatives achieved this was with the banishment of extremist groups such as the John Birch Society from the movement

The conservative movement of the 1960s was created within the context of global events from the Cold War, Vietnam War, and Civil Rights. Conservatives learned from the nation’s failures making innovative efforts to change with major policy changes. In many cases conservatives played a dominant role in creating informed and proactive responses to the changing world (161-242). The final essay in the book looks at the political career of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew who has been overshadowed in the history of the conservative movement by Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan and others. Within the essay concerns about race, crime, and social order caused many moderate liberal and conservative Republicans to move to the right side of the spectrum. The next generation of Conservatives established new innovations in economics, activism, and political dynamics (243-260). Gifford and Williams book, The Right Side of the Sixties, takes a unique look at conservatism within the 1960s and demonstrates how it remained on the fringes until liberals buckled under the strain of domestic and international affairs. The benefits of the book is enormous by addressing the conservative viewpoint that is overlooked during the 1960s. Since then conservatives have either dominated politics or blocked liberal