The Radical Right

by Daniel Bell (Editor)

Two vivid sets of images epitomize the dramatic course of the American right in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The main image is of a triumphant President Ronald Reagan, reasonably viewed as the most effec-tive president of recent decades. A second set of images comes from the bombing of a government building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh, a man linked to shadowy parts of the contemporary ultraright. The roots of Reaganism are conservative, intellectual, and political movements of the 1950s and 1960s, including currents that in those years were considered marginal and ex-tremist. The roots of the ultraright of the 1990s have intersecting though by no means identical sources. Serious evaluation of the American right should begin with The Radical Right. It describes the main positions and composition of distinctive forces on the right in the first half of the 1950s and the next decade. It recognizes the right's vehement opposition to domestic and international Communism, its sharp rejec-tion of the New Deal, and its difficulty in distinguishing between the two. Bell's controversial point of departure is to regard the basic position of what he terms the radical right as excessive in its estimation of the Communist threat and unrealistic in its rejection of New Deal reforms. From this starting point, Bell and his authors evaluate the ways the right went beyond programs and the self-descriptions of its leaders and organizers. The Radical Right explains McCarthyism and its successors in terms of conflicts over social status and the shape of American culture. Daniel Bell focuses on the social dislo-cation of significant groups in the post-New Deal decades. Many members of these groups perceived themselves as dispossessed and victimized by recent changes, even if it was not possible to regard them as having undergone any great suffering. David Plotke's major new introduction discusses the book's argument, McCarthyism and American politics, the changing shape of the American right from 1965-2000, mili-tias, and new issues in American politics. This edition also includes an afterword by Daniel Bell responding to Plotke's interpretation and revisiting his own perspectives.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, American History

606 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading American intellectuals of the postwar era". Bell once described himself as a "socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture."
Bell began his professional life as a journalist, being managing editor of The New Leader magazine (1941–1945), labor editor of Fortune (1948–1958), and later, co-editor (with his college friend Irving Kristol) of The Public Interest magazine (1965–1973). In the late 1940s, Bell was an Instructor in the Social Sciences in the College of the University of Chicago. During the 1950s, it was close to the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Subsequently, he taught sociology, first at Columbia (1959–1969) and then at Harvard until his retirement in 1990. Bell also was the visiting Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University in 1987. He served as a member of the President's Commission on Technology in 1964–1965 and as a member of the President's Commission on a National Agenda for the 1980s in 1979.
His most influential books are, The End of Ideology (1960), The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976),[19] and The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973). Two of his books, the End of Ideology and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, were listed by the Times Literary Supplement as among the 100 most important books in the second half of the twentieth century.

Reviews

[Easter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, albeit dated, look at the radical right wing. The authors of the essays analyze survey data and other studies in order to understand the motivations and the beliefs of groups such as McCarthyites and the John Birch society.
One also learns facts that are not presented in history books. For example, Senator McCarthy rarely went after religious or ethnic minorities for charges of communism. He primarily targeted upper class, ivy league educated elites.
However, the authors also present information that would elicit a big duh from anyone with a pulse. For example, a study showed that a large percentage of John Birch society members are racist and anti-semitic. Although the confirmation is nice, I don't know that it was necessary to spend multiple pages on this matter.
As fascinating as this book is, it should not be mistaken for light reading. The authors write primarily for a college educated audience and their sentence structure and vocabulary reflect that.

[Vincent Navaroli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in 1964 and 62 years later, this book accurately describes what is happening in 2025 with the rise of authoritarianism in the US and throughout the world.

[Sean Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still a perceptive book.