Academic tomes are rarely scintillating reading and this book is no exception. The prose is dry, informative with a few nice descriptive sparks. But this kind of book is not read for entertainment. Lichtman lays out the history of the American conservative movement in detail. He shows the mutual interdependent evolution of protestant and political influence on our society. I read the book because I wanted to understand the philosophy and motivation behind the modern conservative movement. This book provided that.

Great read! Very informative.

Whenever I finish a book of this length and depth I have to let it settle a little. If I write a review too quickly, every interesting, yet minor detail may creep its way in. It is difficult to do justice an extensive labor as this one. Whether one agrees with the content or not, it is not a product to brush aside carelessly.

A quick glance at the library shelves (or Amazon "suggestions") of this genre and the reader often finds political rants and political platform reviews. Yes, this is a liberal-leaning work of history (less balanced than its Atlantic platform) but its bias is not one of poor research but of slanted conclusions. Remember, the title of the book is "White Protestant Nation". It's less a description of a political party and more the supposed unstated aspiration of the movements and personalities that the author explores.

"White Protestant Nation" follows the course of politicians, presidents, advisers, activists donors and policy makers to trace the influences of the American conservative movement. Lichtman balances the evidence well, explaining how diverse the conservative players were, oddly, even contradicting the "white protestant" stereotype. In reality, the movement held to a schizophrenic platform, initial skittish foreign policies and, especially by the era of Neo-conservatives, lacked a personal faith.

Each book chapter covers a given time period, usually from one presidential term or era to another. The deep research and ample use of political convention minutes, dialogues and other primary sources reveals a competition between sincere donors and political players. Politics is power (for any party) which means that too often, it was more important to beat the other party than have a meaningful platform.

The author consolidates an excellent list of actors who contributed to the conservative strategy. Through each era, war, political defeat and social response the political party agenda and strategy would change. If there was a simple formula that the book targets for the conservative "equation" it would be: private enterprise + Christian values. But this simple equation really implies the manipulation of both or either... but that's politics.

The earlier chapters, referencing early conservatism through the 1950s had a much uglier liberal smugness than the rest of the book. The early conservatives were made to look like hypocritical Pharisees, hoping legalism would exempt them from compassion. Through a careful selection of sources and labeling, somehow the "white protestant" movements were blamed for all that was wrong with social justice and civil rights: eugenics, fascism, racism, big business (which "caused" the great depression), anti-Semitism and prudish ethics. A penny's worth of counter-balance added that white southern democrats perpetuated racial segregation; their immoral position pandered to by conservatives and liberals alike as an influential voting bloc.

Despite the overbearing coupling of "protestantism" to social evils the book explores quite expertly the evolution of ideas within various conservative movements. Beginning with isolationism, to anti-communism, to unilateralism in foreign policy it is just as interesting to see why as to see how the arguments formed. Despite the book's title, there never seemed to be a president that fully embraced the "white protestant" agenda of the 'whacko' right. Instead, conservative politics were influenced by compromise and goodwill preferring a moderate at the helm; to the chagrin of Lichtman's exhaustive list of donors and scheming advisers.

If nothing else, this has truly been the magic and "exceptionalism" of America's politics for the last 100 years. Political party and presidential turnovers prove that America maintains a culture of checks and balances even if some prefer to call it frenetic and unwieldy. Lichtman showed that conservative movements have really been thought battles arguing between individual and mass morality ideals. The conservative split has always been about how and to what extent religion should be inserted into politics. There has never been one conservative idea. And at times, there struggled to be any coherent conservative platform at all.

The book is about politics and political movements but "white protestant nation" seeks to draw as many direct, indirect and sketchy connections between protestant pastors and politics as possible (Atlantic publications are good at this). There are a few personalities like missionaries, Bill Bright and Billy Graham that are branded as preachers but also outright conservative party supporters. Others like Francis Schaeffer and later Chuck Colson and Rick Warren are branded white and protestant but are left outside the political circus.

It is unfair, however, that while the author is able to describe in detail so many Christian social movements, none of them get awarded for their social and welfare programs. While scores of think tanks, conservative magazines, talk shows and other idea outlets get bashed by the author for being simple minded and poorly researched propaganda, the book unwittingly highlights the thriving civil society on all political sides.

As the gripping narrative continues, the most 'prized' possession in the GOP annals, Ronald Reagan, was not ensured two mandates by white protestants only. By the 1990s, conservatives had lost their faith in politicians which spurred a revival in Christian movements outside of political action. If there was to be a "protestant" nation it wasn't going to need the sleazy whims of politicians. The neo-cons made an effort to revive the book title's tag line. But the lead philosophy of the neo-con foreign policy thought, Leo Strauss, was a Jew. Besides, neo-cons in Lichtman's description are not big on personal faith anyway.

Since the book is about the conservative movements there is very little discussion of liberal platforms. But if the conservative party was all that was "bad" with America, then the liberal platforms were the consistent healthy choice. In the case of Jimmy Carter, his only fault was failing to make peace more attractive than war. The later neo-liberal platform stood for: social justice, cheap and smart weapons, renewable energy, lifelong education to assist in job transitions and the mobile job market, free trade and incentives for good enterprises.

To be sure, the research and citations in this book make for fascinating and very involved details. On the down side, it could be an unintentional bias of the author to make it appear as if conservatives have left little of lasting, historical quality to America's heritage. Religion will continue to influence politics. I think the author realizes the sincerity of many people's faith, but he no doubt prefers the religious movements that leave politics alone. Now if only I could find a conservative writer that could write with the same academic rigor on the liberal or democratic party power influences of the last 100 years. I need a fully balanced debate.

This books is not written for average readers who might be bored straight to sleep after 100 pages. It is very detailed but perhaps too detailed to most readers who did not majored in politics. It's written like an academic textbook or a super long paper.

However, the book does make it clear how GOP transfer itself from 1920 to 21 century.
One needs to seriously skip and scan in order to save time or falling into sleep. I think 100 pages a day is the maxim for average readers, I usually hold up after 90 pages.

This history of the evangelical Christian movement in the twentieth century is an important contribution to understanding both the recent political arena and the culture wars. It approaches history with a decided present-tense interest in helping to explain current issues. Author Allan J. Lichtman, professor of history at American University in Washington, D.C., demonstrates how conservative religious traditions coalesced in the first half of the twentieth century around issues of morality and society ranging from marriage patterns to economic priorities.

The author's assertion that this was born out of the split between the modernists and the traditionalists is not new, but his positioning of the movement in the context of a larger pro-business, mainly Protestant, coalition of interests is path breaking. Moreover, the rise of intellectuals and financiers such as J. Howard Pew, Frank Gannett, the Du Ponts, William F. Buckley, and William Kristol gave power to the movement beyond its insular borders as never before in the last half century.

These various groups and individuals disagreed with each other on many issues but were united in their hatred of the modern welfare state put into place in successive Democratic administrations between the 1930s and the 1960s and built a network of organizations to resist what they considered the evils both of social engineering and federal power. They used oftentimes misplaced fears of immigration, race relations, and sexual politics as triggers to create powerful political organizations. "White Protestant Nation" offers a well-reasoned, excellently and entertainingly written history of the rise of conservative political power.