The introduction is great, but the journey through the different political writings is the best.

The Radical Center is very informative covering a very wide range of issues in current U.S. politics and putting them together in a thoughtful way and making creative proposals. It's refreshingly not dogmatic, postive and open-minded. I would highly recommend the book to any serious student of American policy today. It's an easy read. My criticism would be that the authors were too loose with their language at times leaving the reader to wonder whether (1) the authors had their facts wrong or (2) didn't recognize the implications of their words or (3) perhaps I was misinformed. For example, they state that the Demoncratic Party has been captured by its more extreme elements. But Clinton/Gore moved the Democratic Party decisively toward the center.

Halstead and Lind have done a fantastic job of setting out a centrist manifesto for the new century. This book is recommended reading for anyone in politics who wants to understand the ideas that can be used to build new coalitions.

Keep an eye on these two and The New America Foundation. They're writing about the things that everyone else will be discussing in ten years.

This book is a quick read but still offers up many thought-provoking discussions covering a wide range of issues facing America today. What I enjoy most about the book is that it objectively confronts many issues (like Social Security) that would be considered untouchable by current politicians. Their ideas are refreshing and definitely not a regurgitation of old-school thinking.

Although I would agree with some of the other reviewers in the respect that the authors tend to throw out some statements without backing them up, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in domestic policy and the future of American politics.

Michael Lind works hard in this book to create a "liberial nationalism" which is a possible argument against Multi-Culturalism. However, his "understanding" of the "religious nativism of the right" shows a smaller, perhaps naive or just perhaps just intentional loss of the big picture.

Contains plenty of facts to show what America looks like, but the way the solutions he presents are unfocused, with seemingly unconnected pro-worker bits thrown in, hopefully to offset the loss of (in his words) "Racial Spoils System." At points it sounds like a logical argument, but in the end it is missing some teeth.

However, Lind writes with a sometimes refreshing dose of realism.

Sometimes it feels that he is saying "here I reveal how things really work, now here is how to fix them" which often takes the wind out of his "real people, real problems" approach. The reader is going to think he'll go into some sort of "pre-populist" rhetoric, but then suddenly his solutions morph into undeveloped policy suggestions.

Its interesting, also, that you get the sense of Lind's hope for strong federal government power, is more of an base to build on, assuming that it ends the "racial spoils system."

Lind puts lots of arguments out in front of the reader, to get them a good idea about the options, but often quickly dismisses them without first establishing or contrasting them in an unbiased way with his own "liberial nationalism."

Its unique reading, and it presents usually well-balanced arguments, but in the end, it doesn't show why liberial nationalism is needed or why the "elite" of the US would ever attempt to follow it.

It is the first real step into "Lind's Liberial Nationalism" but it needs to be fleshed out quite a bit more, (as it seems undeveloped at this point) before it can be presented as a rational alternative to present systems.

Mr. Lind has provided us with an excellent look of America's past, present, and our possible future. His encouragment of interrmarrige to further unite the nation, and to increase assimilation is outstanding. I have some problems with his analysis of the "white Overclass" however. He makes it seem as if there is a group of super wealthy elites whoes only purpose in life is to destroy the middle-class. He points mainly to the growing wealth gap in America. However, he ends the book on a postive note. He shows us how to fix the problems in our society, and showing us that in the past, time and time again, Americans have always reinvented their state and society to point America in a better direction.

It is impossible to do justice to such a wide-ranging book in only a few paragraphs. Fundamentally, Lind provides a three-phase interpretation of American history. As he sees it, the U.S. has experienced three genuine "revolutions": the American Revolution which led to the era of "Anglo America" (1789-1860), the Civil War/Reconstruction which led to "Euro-America" (1876-1954) and the Civil Rights Revolution which led to "Multicultural America" (1970-present).

The book's middle chapters are a devastating critique of today's status quo. Lind finds fault across the political spectrum. "Since the 1970s ... racial preference policies, associated with the political left, have been extended into one area of American life after another ... [Meanwhile] government policies unfavorable to labor, of the kind one thinks of as conservative, have been pursued under both Republican and Democratic administrations." However, "In reality there is no contradiction between left-wing civil rights policy and right-wing economics."

Instead of threatening the system, multiculturalism is corporate America's secret weapon. In the early 1970s it was President Nixon who instituted the first great wave of affirmative action and school busing, with the intent of driving a wedge between the labor and civil rights movements. (The strategy worked.) After the 1990 census, the first Bush administration collaborated with the civil rights establishment to reapportion and create as many black and Hispanic congressional districts as possible, thereby pulling the rug out from under white Democrats in surrounding districts and making it easier for the GOP to win control of Congress in 1994. As Lind notes: "Tokenism provides suitably 'progressive' camoflauge for a system of divide-and-rule politics ... Without the political division of wage-earning white, black and Hispanic Americans along racial lines, it is doubtful that the white overclass would have been able to carry out its agenda of destroying unions, reducing wages, cutting employee benefits, replacing full-time workers with temps, and shifting the burden of taxation from the rich to the middle class, with so little effective opposition."

Today there is no two-party system in the U.S. Rather, we have a one and a half party system -- a socially conservative corporate party (the Republicans) and a socially liberal corporate party (the Democrats). The "conservative" elites on Wall Street and the "liberal" elites in Hollywood both support outrageously high rates of immigration, affirmative action, and a dogmatic commitment to free trade.

Lind puts forward a series of policy proposals that are an iconoclastic blend of conservatism and liberalism. Lind favors a system of "proportional voting" that would blow up the two-party duopoly and open the door to new parties and policy options. He would break the grip of special interests by banning all paid political advertising and replacing it with free and equal media time and mandatory debates. He would raise wages by banning unskilled immigrants (and potential terrorists) from entering the country and by repealing laws that encourage the use of temp labor. He similarly favors a "social tariff" on Third World imports. (Lind is not a knee-jerk protectionist; he opposes tariff barriers between First World countries.) He supports the repeal of affirmative action, not only for women and nonwhites but especially for wealthy white kids who secretly benefit from "legacy preference" in college admissions. He favors a "war on oligarchy" that would drastically reform the legal and medical professions too.

This is an amazingly original and bracing book. Don't hold your breath waiting for Lind's ideas to be implemented any time soon. But he brilliantly spells them out, and that's the essential first step.

This is the most balanced book I've read on the political background to the Vietnam War. It shatters the myths of both the left and right about the war. Lind makes a convincing case for our involvement, how the war should have been fought, and at what point a withdraw should have begun.
Lind justifies our involvement by saying our world leadership was at stake. He rightfully points out that our allies (in the cold war) would have completely lost faith in us if we had withdrawn from IndoChina. This would have especially become critical during the 1980's when our leadership was tested in Western Europe. Without resolve to stand by Vietnam our Western European Allies may had looked elsewhere for leadership while under the Soviet threat in the 1980's.
Lind also shatters both sides myths about the war. He first exposes the popular myth that if John F. Kennedy had lived he would have kept the United States out of the Vietnam War. Lind exposes this left-wing pipe dream, by Kennedy's own quotes favoring our involvement in the war. Some of these staements were made just a few months prior to his assasination. Indeed, Lind points out that this plan was so secret that Kennedy failed to inform his own brother of it! Lind also shatters the myth (by the right) that if North Vietnam had been invaded the war would have been over. Indeed as Lind pointed out it would have escallated: China made commitmints to Vietnam that their ground troops would have assisted them in actual combat (rather than logistics which was their main role during the war) if a invasion occured. In other words: another Korean War, maybe a larger war. Which was a big fear of the Johnson administration.
Overall, this book is excellent, I would reccomend this book to anyone.

The author does an excellent job of reviewing the geopolitical importance of the Vietnam war and the various theories of geopolitical power that explain the conduct of nations. The book attacks the views of both liberals and conservatives on the reasons for military and political failure in Vietnam. While the reasons for failure and the possible solutions are subject to attack themselves, at least they pose a new way of looking at the war and its aftermath which should lead to a better way of examining our current foreign policy. The book asks the right questions and it helps develop answers to current and future problems of a geopolitical nature. The author's writing style is excellent. The book reads quickly and the concepts are well explained. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in history or politics.

Lind has written what will be seen as a landmark work on Vietnam. It took twenty-five years and the detached perspective of a member of the post-war generation to produce an interpretation that is not laden with the emotional baggage of the 1960s. Vietnam: The Necessary War does not give the final truth. That will only be written after political change comes to Vietnam and Hanoi's archives are opened. No doubt, the final truth will be written by a Vietnamese.

But Lind's masterful demolition of the war's many myths raises scholarship on the war - and public understanding - to a new level. After having worked in Vietnam for five years in the 1990s, his appraisal of communist intentions in Indochina (and revealed ambitions for their "international duty" in Thailand) ring true. Hanoi duped the West (not Washington) during the war and is similarly succeeding today (though again, not Washington) as it attracts substantial foreign aid and diplomatic support while neithering offering nor facing expectations for political change. Any who doubt Lind's understanding that Ho's goals for Vietnam were to have it participate in the world revolution need only look up the Politburo's recent assertions that the country will remain firmly on the socialist path.

I have rarely come across a non-fiction book that was such a delight to read. Perhaps this is because it was so evidently a search for the truth without the ulterior political motives most writers on Vietnam purposely or unwittingly pursue.

Author Michael Lind, a 5th generation Texan, provides a dual biography of a President and the state of Texas. This is what makes it so interesting. Many authors have recently published books regarding Bush 43's personality and policies, specifically, in response to September, 2001. In this book however, Lind analyses and examines George W. Bush's policies and links them to the influential continuum of the cultural and political forces of Texas: the Deep South, Southern Protestants, and the Neo-conservative foundations that were solidified by his father's, administration. In short, what he's doing today according to Lind is not solely or even significantly as a result of September '01. Obviously as for any policy-maker, Bush 43's current policy-making in general is derived from himself, and his convictions are the result of his primary influences, past and present. Therefore the question is, what is this spectrum that influences him the most?

Texas
Lind expands more on his home-state of Texas. The state of Texas is often seen misappropriately, as culturally Western, but in fact it's clearly Southern, and Deeply Southern. This has always been apparent to those who've lived in and/or studied the South and Texas.

There are two camps in Texas: One is the "Texas modernists," of which Bush 43 is not. Lind categorizes Bush 43 as one of the "Texas traditionalists." These are proponents of militarism and an economic base focusing on commodity exports and oil exploration. This southern economic model which George W. advocates, Lind claims, will continue to push for free-trade agreements which send U.S. jobs oversees, and entice out-of-state companies to move to southern states because of lower wages.

These are but a few examples and insights Lind provides. He's not a fan of George W. but this isn't over-bearing in the book. If one wants to understand the rational and philosophy behind Bush's domestic and foreign economic, military, and diplomatic policies this book provides a wealth of information. It also explains the interests, cultural, sociological, and political forces of Texas, and its' major components. Those interested in national electoral politics such as the next Presidential election for example, can take much of this information and ask them self: who in 2004 can appeal to the southern block, which still is obviously instrumental in winning a Presidential election.

First, to be honest, I did not vote for George W. Bush. Probably like many people I viewed him as well-meaning but under-informed, an underachiever in life who was handed the reins of power through pure luck and powerful connections. I was sure, with the help of his father and the elders in the Republican Party, he would surround himself with competent advisors and ultimately pursue a course of moderation and good sense in both domestic and foreign affairs. Therefore, when some of the early initiatives out of the White House seemed counter to earlier expectations (abrogation of important treaties, anti-environmental positions, unilateralist and militaristic approaches to complex world problems, a dangerous and unbalanced approach to the Middle Eastern crisis) my visceral discomfort with this man has evolved into alarm. This book by Michael Lind confirms my worst fears. It is a scholarly and objective survey of the culture from which our president arose. As Lind points out, we have had southerner presidents who were liberals and northerner presidents who were conservatives, but never since Andrew Jackson have we had a southern conservative holding the most powerful office in the land. Lind does a thorough job of analyzing the state of Texas from the demographic standpoint, pointing out that the majority of the population reside in East Texas which is intrinsically part of the deep south. These people largely originated in Scotland and Northern Ireland (Scots-Irish) and brought with them to this country a 17th and 18th century British outlook on class and empire, typified by the attitudes of a land-holding aristocracy. In an economic sense their ancestral model is Thomas Jefferson. In a chapter entitled "Southernomics" he describes how this region evolved on the plantation model of extraction of raw materials (oil, cotton, minerals, etc) and the exploitation first of slaves and more recently of low wage and undereducated menial workers (modern day "serfs"). This model favors "free trade" and opposes tariffs in order to maximize profit in the exportation of commodities. It places low value on preservation of natural resources while promoting their extraction and utilization. Lind contends that this model has shaped our 43rd president's thinking about economics. He contrasts an "old boy network" style of management and connections peculiar to the deep South with the traditional culture that shaped most of the rest of the country, one that is based on an economic model of meritocracy, emphasis on the creation of ideas, the valuing of higher education as the key to economic development. Lind is careful to avoid over-generalization as he points out that Texas is a diverse state, and that these two economic models both exist in the state and are in fundamental conflict. For example, he points to many Texas leaders who typify modern liberal enlightenment attitudes, people like Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Wright Patman, and Ross Perot.

The most disturbing aspect of this book for me begins with a chapter entitled "That Old Time Religion" which exposes the influence of the southern Protestant fundamentalist religious culture on George W. Bush, and how this in turn has become a driving force in the almost messianic identification of this president with the right wing in Israel and Mr. Sharon. This plays into fundamentalist dispensationalist dogma about the End-times, Armageddon, and The Second Coming. It further sheds light on the peculiar alliance of these mostly southern Protestant militaristic and fundamentalist masses (who provide the electoral clout) with a powerful intellectual neoconservative elite (who provide the brains) and who now control our defense department. These people hold a radical and fundamentally new view of American foreign policy, one that promotes a doctrine of preemption and the aggressive exercise of American military power. They are tightly allied with the Zionist movement both here and in Israel.

This is a powerful and very disturbing book. Michael Lind has tried not to over-emotionalize this information but he obviously feels passionately about these issues. He has given us a well-researched and thoughtful expose' of the real forces that are driving this president. Everybody should read it!

First, to be honest, I did not vote for George W. Bush. Probably like many people I viewed him as a well-meaning, under-informed and recently reformed "goofball", an underachiever in school who was handed the reins of power through pure luck and powerful connections. I was sure, with the help of his father and the elders in the Republican Party, he would surround himself with competent advisors and ultimately pursue a course of moderation and good sense in both domestic and foreign affairs. Therefore, when some of the early initiatives out of the White House seemed counter to earlier expectations (abrogation of important treaties, anti-environmental positions, unilateralist and militaristic approaches to complex world problems, a dangerous and unbalanced approach to the Middle Eastern crisis) my visceral discomfort with this man has evolved into alarm. This book by Michael Lind confirms my worst fears. It is a scholarly and objective survey of the culture from which our president arose. As Lind points out, we have had southerner presidents who were liberals and northerner presidents who were conservatives, but never since Andrew Jackson have we had a southern conservative holding the most powerful office in the land. Lind does a thorough job of analyzing the state of Texas from the demographic standpoint, pointing out that the majority of the population reside in East Texas which is intrinsically part of the deep south. These people largely originated in Scotland and Northern Ireland (Scots-Irish) and brought with them to this country a 17th and 18th century British outlook on class and empire, typified by the attitudes of a land-holding aristocracy. In an economic sense their ancestral model is Thomas Jefferson. In a chapter entitled "Southernomics" he describes how this region evolved on the plantation model of extraction of raw materials (oil, cotton, minerals, etc) and the exploitation first of slaves and more recently of low wage and undereducated menial workers (modern day "serfs"). This model favors "free trade" and opposes tariffs in order to maximize profit in the exportation of commodities. It places low value on preservation of natural resources while promoting their extraction and utilization. Lind contends that this model has shaped our 43rd president's thinking about economics. He contrasts an "old boy network" style of management and connections peculiar to the deep South with the traditional culture that shaped most of the rest of the country, one that is based on an economic model of meritocracy, emphasis on the creation of ideas, the valuing of higher education as the key to economic development. Lind is careful to avoid over-generalization as he points out that Texas is a diverse state, and that these two economic models both exist in the state and are in fundamental conflict. For example, he points to many Texas leaders who typify modern liberal enlightenment attitudes, people like Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Wright Patmon, and Ross Perot.

The most disturbing aspect of this book for me begins with a chapter entitled "That Old Time Religion" which exposes the influence of the southern Protestant fundamentalist religious culture on George W. Bush, and how this in turn has become a driving force in the almost messianic identification of this president with the right wing in Israel and Mr. Sharon. This plays into fundamentalist dispensationalist dogma about the End-times, Armageddon, and The Second Coming. It further sheds light on the peculiar alliance of these mostly southern Protestant militaristic and fundamentalist masses (who provide the electoral clout) with a powerful intellectual neoconservative elite (who provide the brains) and who now control our defense department. These people hold a radical and fundamentally new view of American foreign policy, one that promotes a doctrine of preemption and the aggressive exercise of American military power. They are tightly allied with the Zionist movement both here and in Israel.

This is a powerful and very disturbing book. Michael Lind has tried not to over-emotionalize this information but he obviously feels passionately about these issues. He has given us a well-researched and thoughtful expose' of the real forces that are driving this president. Everybody should read it!

The hostile reviewers of this book miss the point. Lind is not saying that all conservatives are racist. Rather, he's explaining how the modern conservative movement is influenced by racist and xenophobic thought. He openly admits that many conservatives are admirable.

Bottom line, this book needs some rewrites. And, Lind's economics and policy prescriptions are debatable at best. But, a good 15-30% of the conservative vote, nationwide, comes from people who'd be voting for the "One Nation" movement in Australia, or the National Front in France--a.k.a., rabid racists and intolerant religious fanatics. That's the truth, and Democrats and Republicans should read this book to understand the implications of that fact for "public discourse" and electoral politics.

Michael Lind was once an up-and-coming conservative activist until he realized that his mentor, William F. Buckley, Jr., refused to condemn televangelist Pat Robertson for his book "The New World Order." Lind became disillusioned with the conservative movement as it veered away from the old-style conservatism to embrace the radical right.

Because he has the advantage of having been an insider, his book is much more powerful and persuasive than books by those outside the movement. Lind shows the reader the roots of modern day conservatism, he discusses the think tanks that are behind much of today's conservative thought, and he focuses on three conservative hoaxes very popular with the public.

The best part of his book, however, is a chapter based upon a review Lind wrote in the New York Review of Books about Pat Robertson's "The New World Order." Lind is absolutely brilliant in exposing Robertson's plagarism of anti-Semitic works which Robertson in turn sanitized to a more conventional conspiracy theory. And yet there was very little negative comment about Robertson, especially from fellow conservatives. Lind calls this silence a result of a "no enemies to the right" policy.

Lind's book isn't perfect. His explanation of the genealogy of American political thought becomes rather confusing in places. Some readers will no doubt object to Lind's attitude toward affirmative action (he's against it). But all in all, it is still an excellent book.

"The Republicans have a problem. The economic program of American Conservatives, if enacted in its entirety, would devastate the middle class while helping the American overclass. Income would be redistributed upward, while taxes would be redistributed downward.... How can conservatives expect to win votes for an economic program so inimical to the middle class? The answer is they cannot--and they know it. Therefore, most conservative ideologues... have done their best to change the subject from the economy to what they like to call, 'the culture'..."
Michael Lind
UP FROM CONSERVATISM
From Chapter Five, "Whistling Dixie"

My copy of this book is looking more and more as if I am studying for a final exam based on its contents; every other paragraph of every chapter is a ten-megaton bomb of an aphorism worth quoting.

"Perhaps however, my statement of the problem is mistaken. The question was, 'Why have there been no world-class American conservative intellectuals?' when it should have been "Why are there so FEW American conservative intellectuals [emphasis mine]?" By intellectuals I do not mean propagandists or causists, who provide the party faithful with the party line on the subjects of the day. I mean independent thinkers, who may be "conservative" or "liberal" or "libertarian" or "socialist" in terms of their basic principles, but who are free to draw their own conclusions without looking over their shoulders and fearing punishment for heterodoxy..."

"If further proof is needed for my contention that much of today's conservative political theory is merely Marxism with the substitution of "bourgeois" for "proletariat" and "culture" for "class," it can be found in Joyce's call for enlisting art and literature in the service of Republican conservatism, a program that is indistinguishable, except in its content, from the aesthetic orthodoxy of American communities during the 1920's and 1930's...the literary and artistic techniques used by communists and fascists alike would be adopted to disseminate conservative ideology...For the time being, it seems, Americans will have to be content with the work of conservative public policy intellectuals."

Michael Lind, UP FROM CONSERVATISM
From Chapter 3: "The Triangular Trade: How the Conservative Movement Works"

Michael Lind's detailed analysis of the overall psyche and political agenda of the power brokers of the Conservative movement in modern America is beyond prescient, beyond clear--and beyond frightening. It's also beyond superlatives.

"The resemblance between Marxism and the classical liberal economic utopianism of the American right is a family resemblance. Marxism and free-market fundamentalism are squabbling twins, the offspring of the Enlightenment's naive belief in inevitable progress.... In the former communist countries, the high priests of economic dogma were the Marxist dialecticians; in the United States and Britain (though not in Japan or continental Europe), neoclassical economists serve as guardians of the orthodoxy, promising "scientific" approaches to economic progress...Today's American conservatives, however, have adopted free-market fundamentalism, in its crudest forms, as their political religion."

Michael Lind, UP FROM CONSERVATISM
From Chapter Ten: "Soaking the Middle: The Conservative Class War Against Wage-earning Americans"

"American conservatism, then, is a countercommunism that replicates, down to rather precise details of organization and theory, the communism that it opposes..."

Michael Lind, UP FROM CONSERVATISM
Chapter Ten
Soaking the Middle: The Conservative Class War Against Wage-Earning Americans

What Alice Miller is to psychology, Michael Lind has become to American Politics.

Michael Lind's UP FROM CONSERVATISM uncovers the intellectual nerve center and primitive philosophical foundation for much of the dialectical arguments about virtually anything in culture today on both sides of the political fence, from the validity of Afrocentrism to the very existence of privacy and independent thought in our increasingly technologically fascist modern society--and the consequences of their gradual disappearance.

"...Today, having hijacked the Republican Party, [the leaders of the Conservative Right have become] 'radicals', seeking, in alliance with multinational corporate elite, to dismantle the New Deal [of FDR] and to impose their peculiar "New South" vision of the United States as a low wage, low tax, low regulation economy in which economic segregation replaces formal legal segregation not merely in their native region but in the country as a whole."

From Chapter Five: "Whistling Dixie"

This book is to the future of American politics and culture what Martin Luther's original Theses, nailed to the cathedral walls in the 17th century is to the history of Protestantism.

"The parallel between [anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist of the 1930's Father] Coughlin and [Pat] Robertson breaks down in one respect to be sure: Father Coughlin was soon silenced by the Catholic Church and politically disgraced. Robertson, after expressing almost indistinguishable views in almost identical language, continues to be defended by conservative intellectuals, including the leading Jewish conservatives... a leading conservative editor with whom I was...on cordial terms...replied: 'Of course [i.e. The Christian Coalition]'re mad, but we need their votes.'"

With all the irony of Shakespeare and the fright power of Stephen King, it reads like the perfect combination of a masterfully written textbook and a beautifully crafted novel. This is clear cut political and cultural analysis at its finest, with brilliant, erudite ideas expressed in the most common sense language. A truly important book.

If the Battle of the Alamo had taken as long to fight as it was to "read", the outcome could have been completely different. After suffering from headaches, hysteria & historical overload in iambic pentameter, surely, the "Anglo boys" (Crockett, Travis, etc.) could have won in order to save future generations the humiliation of reading "history" in prozac prose

The Alamo is a natural subject for an epic poem, though the form has fallen out of favor. Congratulations to Michael Lind, and to his publisher, for taking a chance on such an ambitious project. The poetry is first-rate, concrete, image-driven work that captures the flavor of the battle detail by detail. Laced with wit, and historically informed, I count this as the single best non-academic approach to the subject that I've seen.

Ho hum, it reads fine and easy like a warm tapioca. All the usual stereotypes are in play - with the usual (mis)treatment of white males. Bad white males, Bad