Before the Storm

"Combining prodigious research with journalistic flair, Rick Perlstein...has produced a detailed and dramatic narrative of the rise of the modern right...It's an amazing story, and Perlstein, a man of the left, does it justice."

"Finally, a gifted writer has told the full story of the difficult birth and exuber­ant adolescence of the conservative movement that went on to transform American politics. Rick Perlstein's indispensable history is stuffed with wit, learning, and drama. After reading it, you will never think of the 1960s in the same way again."

"Before the Storm is smart and lively, and the description is delightfully thick...The point of Rick Perlstein’s animated re-creation of the Goldwater campaign is that Barry Goldwater was as much a man of the nineteen-sixties as Abbie Hoffman or Malcolm X, and, what's more, his shadow looms a good deal larger than theirs. It's not only that more politicians today sound like Goldwater than like Tom Hayden. More politicians today sound like Goldwater than like Lyndon Johnson."

"Daring, virtuosic writing, and encyclopedic mastery make...[Before the Storm] one of the most stylish, riveting achievements in narrative history to appear in years...An exciting volume, an outstanding debut. It goes beyond conservatism. It ups the ante on what popular history can, and should, do."

"Perlstein retells this story with energy and skill...His vibrant, detailed nar­rative moves swiftly and brings a large cast to life."

"Occasionally a book comes along which causes historians to rethink an entire era. Rick Perlstein's remarkable Before the Storm is such an achievement: ele­gantly written, copiously researched, brimming with fresh anecdotes. Perlstein illuminates how conservatism erupted into a mass political movement while the academic scholars and media pundits were embracing Great Society Liberal­ism and Counterculture Despair. A truly landmark study."

"One of the finest studies of the American right to appear since the days of Hof­stadter. Read it and understand where the mad public faiths of our own day came from."

"Perlstein is such a great storyteller—one of the most enjoyable historians I've ever read."

"Writing with the authority of an academic historian and the dash of a jour­nalist, Mr. Perlstein manages to break free of the partisan idees rerues and doctrinal laziness that typify so much writing on recent history. There is something independent, un-bought-out and, in the best sense, radical about this book."

"Although conservative Republicans suffered a humiliating defeat in 1964, the principles they had embraced and the organization they had built endured, soon to bring them local, state and then national victories. Perlstein tells this story with energy and insight, and in lively prose."

"Anyone who has read Perlstein's wonderfully colorful account of the Goldwa­ter nomination and his subsequent defeat in November 1964 will be sorry that the book stops there...Let us hope that Perlstein is already at work on another book about it all."

"Offer[s] much background on the remarkable fact of contemporary politics: most of our major political institutions...are today owned by the right, al­ though, issue by issue, the causes of the right are unpopular...Perlstein has a nose for pungent detail. It is hard to imagine that he has missed any interesting or delicious fact about Goldwater or his circle of devotees."

"Comprehensive and compelling...The heart of Perlstein's lengthy book is his colorful account of the intellectual giants, the canny political operatives, and the far-out fellow travelers in the conservative cause."

"Before the Storm is told dazzlingly. Perlstein re-creates the social and cultural milieu that gave rise to the conservative movement with earned authority and easy patience...Insightful, gracefully written, well-paced and sympathetic to its central characters' motivations."

"Perlstein's narrative...is never less than compelling, brilliantly researched and reported."