Invisible Hands
The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan
2008
First Published
4.09
Average Rating
376
Number of Pages
A narrative history of the influential businessmen who fought to roll back the New Deal. Starting in the mid-1930s, a handful of prominent American businessmen forged alliances with the aim of rescuing America—and their profit margins—from socialism and the "nanny state." Long before the "culture wars" usually associated with the rise of conservative politics, these driven individuals funded think tanks, fought labor unions, and formed organizations to market their views. These nearly unknown, larger-than-life, and sometimes eccentric personalities—such as GE's zealous, silver-tongued Lemuel Ricketts Boulware and the self-described "revolutionary" Jasper Crane of DuPont—make for a fascinating, behind-the-scenes view of American history. The winner of a prestigious academic award for her original research on this book, Kim Phillips-Fein is already being heralded as an important new young American historian. Her meticulous research and narrative gifts reveal the dramatic story of a pragmatic, step-by-step, check-by-check campaign to promote an ideological revolution—one that ultimately helped propel conservative ideas to electoral triumph. 16 Photographs
Avg Rating
4.09
Number of Ratings
563
5 STARS
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4 STARS
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3 STARS
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2 STARS
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1 STARS
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Author
Kim Phillips-Fein
Author · 3 books
Kimberly Phillips-Fein is a historian of twentieth-century American politics. She teaches courses in American political, business, and labor history. She has contributed to essay collections published by Harvard University Press, University of Pennsylvania Press and Routledge and to journals such as Reviews in American History and International Labor and Working-Class History. Professor Phillips-Fein has written widely for publications including the Nation, London Review of Books, New Labor Forum, to which she has contributed articles and reviews. She is currently working on a new project about New York City in the 1970s.
