| Descript |
xiii, 412 pages ; 24 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
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Publications of the german historical institute
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| Note |
"Inventing the Silent Majority in Western Europe and the United States examines the unprecedented mobilization and transformation of conservative movements on both sides of the Atlantic during a pivotal period in postwar history. Convinced that 'noisy minorities' had seized the agenda, conservatives in Western Europe and the United States began to project themselves under Nixon's popularized label of the 'silent majority'. The years between the early 1960s and the late 1970s witnessed the emergence of countless new political organizations that sought to defend the existing order against a perceived left-wing threat from the resurgence of a new, politically organized Christian right to the beginnings of a radicalized version of neoliberal economic policy. Bringing together new research by leading international scholars, this ground-breaking volume offers a unique framework for studying the phenomenon of conservative mobilization in a comparative and transnational perspective"-- Provided by publisher |
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"With his televised "Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam" on November 3, 1969, asking "the great silent majority of . . . [his] fellow Americans" for their support, President Richard Nixon popularized a label that would help to reshape American politics in powerful ways in the years to come. The voices of ordinary Americans, Nixon warned, had been drowned out by a vocal, antiwar minority responsible for "mounting demonstration in the street" that sought to impose its view on themajority and threatened the future of the nation.1 Although such an appeal to the "forgotten" "real Americans" was not new - it had long been a staple of populist politics in the United States2 - there was something about the notion of belonging to the silent majority that seemed to capture the imagination of vast swathes of the American public at that time of political and cultural upheaval. An estimated seventy million television viewers watched the carefully crafted speech, and tens of thousands of letters from self-declared members of the silent majority poured into the White House in the weeks that followed. Even the president's opponents conceded that the phrase had been "one of the most brilliant political inventions of recent years," and it entered common political discourse with astonishing speed"-- Provided by publisher |
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Includes bibliographical references and index |
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Machine generated contents note: Contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction: silent majorities and conservative mobilization in the 1960s and 1970s in transatlantic perspective Anna von der Goltz and Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson; Part I. Origins and Ideas: 1. American conservatism from Roosevelt to Johnson Julian E. Zelizer; 2. The radicalization of neoliberalism Daniel Stedman Jones; Part II. Political Mobilization and Responses to Left-wing Protest: 3. Silent minority? British Conservative students in the age of campus protest John Davis; 4. A vocal minority: student activism of the center-right in West Germany's 1968 Anna von der Goltz; 5. Mobilizing the silent majority in France in the 1970s Bernard Lachaise; 6. The silent majority: a Humean perspective Donald T. Critchlow; Part III. Conservatism and the Issue of Race: 7. The silent majority: how the private becomes political Bill Schwarz; 8. African-American Republicans, 'black capitalism', and the Nixon administration Joshua D. Farrington; Part IV. Religious Mobilization: 9. Awakening the sleeping giant: the rise and political role of the Christian Right since the 1960s Mark J. Rozell and Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson; 10. Why is there no Christian right in Germany? German conservative Christians and the invention of a silent majority in the 1970s Thomas Grossbolting; 11. Modern crusaders: the conservative Catholic politics of resistance in post-conciliar Netherlands Marjet Derks; Part V. Languages and Media Strategies of Conservatism: 12. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's 'spiral of silence', the silent majority, and the Conservative moment of the 1970s Martin H. Geyer; 13. Campaigning against 'red public television': conservative mobilization and the invention of private television in West Germany Frank Bosch; 14. Talking in Europe: CDU/CSU, the British Conservative Party, and the quest for a common political language in the 1960s and 1970s Martina Steber; Part VI. Cultures of Conservatism: 15. Goodbye to the party of Rockefeller: how a decidedly 'un-silent minority' pushed the GOP to embrace anti-feminism Stacie Taranto; 16. Pornography, heteronormativity, and the genealogy of New Right sexual citizenship in the United States Whitney Strub; 17. 1968 and all That(cher): cultures of conservatism and the New Right in Britain Lawrence Black; Afterword: winners and losers Michael Kazin; Index |
| Subject |
Conservatism -- Europe, Western -- History -- 20th century
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Conservatism -- United States -- History -- 20th century
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Political participation -- Europe, Western -- History -- 20th century
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Political participation -- United States -- History -- 20th century
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Silent majority
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| Alt Author |
Von der Goltz, Anna, 1978- editor
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Waldschmidt-Nelson, Britta, editor
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