Neoconservative Revolution : Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy

by Friedman, Murray

• ISBN13: 9780511123665
• ISBN10: 0511123663
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2005-05-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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 in the lead up to and invasion of Iraq. It presents a portrait of the life and work of the original and small group of neo cons including Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Sidney Hook. This group has grown into a new generation who operate as columnists in conservative think tanks like The Heritage and The American Enterprise Institute, at colleges and universities, and in government in the second Bush Administration including such lightening rod figures as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Elliot Abrams. The book suggests the neo cons have been so significant in reshaping modern American conservatism and public policy that they constitute a Neo Conservative Revolution as the book's title suggests.

Table of Contents

Introduction

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

Epilogue

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