Phyllis Schlafly And Grassroots Conservatism

In this academic biography, Donald Critchlow chronicles the full life and prolific outpouring of the proud American housewife who is both credited and blamed for helping to get Goldwater nominated in 1964, and for defeating the ERA in the 1970s. In Critchlow`s view, Phyllis Schlafly deserves much of the credit for the rise of American conservatism that started in `64, culminated with Reagan`s election, and has continued since. Describing Schlafly`s roots in a Catholic family in St. Louis in the 1950s, he also reveals that she went to Radcliffe, got a master`s degree, worked in a think tank, married a man 15 years older, and later earned a law degree. But above all, she was a writer-activist, whose conservative tracts connected with an audience neglected by the mainstream press and politicians, and whose attack-dog language shares some of the qualities valued today in political writing. Her supporters saw her as being in the tradition of the firebrand and pamphleteer Tom Paine, while her detractors charged that her tactics recalled the red-baiter and demagogue Senator Joe McCarthy. Critchlow treats his subject with care and fairness, and renders several decades of American history in the same way. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.