Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars

Academic Reviews

“At once a valuable historical contribution and a work of ripped-from-the-headlines timeliness, Resistance from the Right zeroes in on the crucible of the late 1960s when student protest went both mainstream and militant, and conservatives built a coalition and an ethos from the task of resisting it. Chronicling three pivotal years with meticulous precision grounded in extensive archival and oral history research, Shepherd definitively conveys how the New Right forged its distinctively puckish, trolling style in combat with—and imitation of—the sixties New Left and counterculture." —Sam Rosenfeld, author of The Polarizers: Postwar Architects of Our Partisan Era

“Resistance from the Right is a vital, urgent exploration of the right's long war on the university, showcasing that current attacks on higher education are nothing new but rather the result of a sixty-year battle to undermine a diversifying university. Truly a must-read." —Nicole Hemmer, author of Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s

“Resistance from the Right is a superb addition to the growing body of scholarship on the history of the American right. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd convincingly argues that right-wing students on American campuses during the 1960s were unpopular but that popularity was not a prerequisite for them to build power. Rather, the student right’s path to power was its alignment with influential authorities both on and off campus. Based on voluminous archival research, including interviews the author conducted with a host of former right-wing campus activists, Resistance from the Right shows that our current campus wars are rooted in 60 years of right-wing organizing against real and perceived progressivism in the nation’s universities. A must read!” — Andrew Hartman, Illinois State University, author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars

"Resistance from the Right confidently places conservative thinkers and sponsors in conversation with students in an effort to reveal the expanse of the cultural battlefield of higher education. Shepherd’s meticulous and timely book highlights the right in the history of student activism." —Stefan M. Bradley, Amherst College, author of Upending the Ivory Tower: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League

"Strong, unique, and well researched, this book addresses a major gap in the studies of American higher education in the protest era of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Digging deeply into a range of conservative organizations and actors, Shepherd offers a refreshing conversation about student activism in the late 1960s." —Linda Eisenmann, Wheaton College, author of Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945-1965

“Resistance from the Right places the campus conservatives of the late 1960s where they belong: not as a mere footnote, not as a mere quirk, but as a central formative part of American conservatism in the late 20th century. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone hoping to understand either American conservatism or American higher education.” —Adam Laats, Binghamton University (SUNY), author of Creationism USA, Fundamentalist U, and The Other School Reformers