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To: H-1960S@H-NET.MSU.EDU Subject: conservative 60s roundtable The Conservative Sixties. David Farber and Jeff Roche, eds. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. For a long time, when academic historians wrote about the Sixties era they wrote about most everything except conservatism. I am exaggerating some but not much. To the degree that conservatives were examined it was almost always in the context of failure and decline, the end of anti- communism, the last gasps of the Birchers and their kind, the rejection of the Goldwater crowd and their candidate, and the breakup of the segregationist cause. Interesting exceptions did exist; Dan Carter almost single-handedly pushed George Wallace and reactionary populism into the narrative and several rich books on Nixon complicated the Sixties story. But at least through the mid-90s the academic buzz and popular interest ran to the left-liberal, countercultural- liberationist subject matter. Even when historians aimed to push the Sixties narrative in new directions, for a long time nobody was much interested. When my dissertation book on the protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention got published I was surprised that almost everybody treated it as an account of the demonstrators. I intended the book to be about the conflict between proponents of law and order and advocates of a new political order. And the book ends with the forces of law and order victorious on the streets and in American public opinion. But my plotline was only recognized by old school New Leftists who did their best to bury the book. I'm still mad at Maurice Isserman for writing in the American Historical Review that the book was so bad that the University of Chicago Press should be ashamed for having published it. Or as the reviewer in the Village Voice explained, the book was "dangerous" for having attempted to give the forces of "reaction" equal weight in the historic events recounted. My point is not that some kind of left-wing conspiracy kept Sixties historiography from focusing on conservatives or anti- leftists, though in this informal setting I could not help myself from getting in a couple of very late counterpunches. I think the issue is more complicated. American historians had been for decades writing a national narrative, at least in the twentieth century - that explained how progressive forces created a more egalitarian, just society. From the progressives to the New Deal to the triumph of liberalism the story ran in one direction. In the 1960s and 1970s, leftist historians had attacked that progressive tale--but only by detailing the shortcomings of liberals. They wanted to write a new national narrative that explained how liberals had held back an even more progressive people's movement that would have produced even more egalitarianism and justice. So the debate for a while in the history business tended to focus on liberal historiography and leftist historiography. That parameter, partially, explains the limits of 60s history. The narrative tension between liberal historians and leftist historians, of course, did not well prepare people to understand historically the incredible political and cultural successes of conservatives from the late 1960s though the re- election of George Bush. And really since the Reagan years historians have been trying to catch up and craft a national history that retrospectively gets the United States from the New Deal to the Reagan Revolution or from Coolidge to Bush. If one takes seriously, as I think one must, the power of conservatism in the United States and tries to write a long history that explains the shifting meanings of conservatism in the United States and explores conservatives' struggles to assert their will, then the Sixties look very different. In part, the triumphs of liberalism in the Sixties come off as high-wire acts rather than as timid responses to demands for radical action. Similarly, Nixon's triumph in 1968 and his blowout victory in 1972 become more historically significant events; perhaps the electorate is not fooled by a Machiavellian Nixon, as is the too usual account, but is rather energized by Nixon's approach to key political issues. Then, too, subject matter that is often left out of the historical record, what is going on in all of those new suburbs with their record number of new churches, becomes critical. We do all know better now. And for several years, historians have been writing marvelous, award winning books on conservatives and conservatism. Jeff Roche and I put together _The Conservative Sixties_ to showcase this kind of work as it applies specifically to Sixties historiography. In part, the work features senior historians (most especially one of our most brilliant, original and prolific scholars, Don Critchlow), who have long worried about the history profession's failure to address the forces of conservatism. It also seeks to advertise the work of several less senior historians who are at the cutting edge of a new historiography of U.S. conservatism. Jeff Roche, whose own work places him securely on that edge, rounded up almost all of those scholars. So, taken as a whole, _The Conservative Sixties_ argues that the Sixties era marked the resurgence, reorganization and reconceptualization of American conservatism. The Sixties were a vital era in conservatives' rise to power. The Sixties were a time of inspiration for conservative activists. The Sixties were a time of growing political realignment away from liberalism and toward conservative domination. To understand modern conservatism you must understand the events of the 1960s. To understand the Sixties era you have to recognize that conservatives were at the center of the action. When we teach the Sixties and the post-war era more generally, we need to include conservatives in the narrative and in our analyses. David Farber
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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