When Hollywood Was Right

Donald T. Critchlow is a Professor of History at Arizona State University. He has authored and edited numerous books, including The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Made Political History (2007, revised 2011); Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism (2005); and Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government (1999). He is currently working on a data-driven book, American Democracy Now and its Future. He is editor of the Journal of Policy History, an interdisciplinary quarterly published by Cambridge University Press, and general editor of the Cambridge Essential Histories Series.

• Introduction; 1. Setting the stage in the 1930s: Republicans on defense; 2. Anti-communism comes to Hollywood; 3. The Red Scare hits Hollywood; 4. Nixon plays Hollywood; 5. The Hollywood Right goes for Goldwater and finds Reagan; 6. Ronald Reagan: triumph and decline of the Hollywood Right.

'When Hollywood Was Right offers a lesson for today of how an embattled, factionalized Republican Party came together to elect a principled and pragmatic conservative, Ronald Reagan, to the presidency. Plus this is a damn good read.' Barry Goldwater, Jr, former United States Congressman