Jewish intellectuals, masculinity, and the making of modern American conservatism, 1930--1980

"Jewish Intellectuals, Masculinity, and the Making of Modern American Conservatism, 1930-1980" analyzes the journey of a group of influential and mostly Jewish male intellectuals who shifted from liberalism to conservatism in the second half of the twentieth century. They were the founding figures of neoconservatism, a pejorative first coined by Michael Harrington to describe liberals who shifted right in the early 1970s. Though they repeatedly opined that their shift was a response to sixties radicalism, this dissertation analyzes how ethnic identity and gender politics also shaped their political realignments.;By examining the ways in which gender concerns were entwined with the writings of these intellectuals on a variety of issues, including Jewish immigrant life, Cold War liberalism, black-Jewish relations, the social movements of the sixties, and foreign policy, this project reveals that neoconservatism emerged from a longer and more complex process than a late 1960s shift in perspective. It thus challenges the neoconservative self-narrative, reified in numerous books and articles and accepted by many scholars, which pinpoints 1960s radicalism as the catalyst of the groups' increasingly conservative politics. In addition, while neoconservatism has in recent years been liked to foreign policy, it was initially a movement sparked by domestic issues. This project links the domestic and international by analyzing how concerns regarding masculinity shaped neoconservatism.;Jewish neoconservatives gave intellectual legitimacy to a once enervated American right, which greatly contributed to the success of the conservative movement in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Other branches of conservatism thrived in the postwar years, yet the Jewish contribution helped erase the image of a Republican Party rooted in antiquated racism and isolationism.