PRINCIPLES AND HERESIES
Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement
By Kevin J. Smant
Foreword M. Stanton Evans
List Item No. 313
ISBN: 1-882926-72-2 (cloth)
425 pages
List Price: $29.95
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As the subtitle to Kevin Smant's biography indicates, the shape of the postwar American conservative movement was decisively influenced by Frank Meyer (1909-1973). One of the most passionate and committed of the Cold War's communists-turned-conservatives, Meyer's untiring efforts to locate a principled ground for the "fusion" of the disparate strands of conservatism—particularly its traditionalist and libertarian wings—provided the necessary cohesion for a fractious movement to eventually sweep to power with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Smant's volume traces Meyer's intellectual evolution from communist radical—Meyer was expelled from the London School of Economics for distributing communist literature, and he did extensive work for the Communist Party in America during the 1930s and 1940s—to conservative intellectual and political activist, with considerable attention devoted to Meyer's work and influence at National Review. In the process, Smant demonstrates Meyer's vital role in channeling disparate forces and personalities toward the creation of a unified conservative political movement.
What They're Saying...
"These biographies of James Burnham and Frank Meyer by Kelly and Smant present in great detail the lives, literary influences, and work of two conservative giants. Their clarity of thought and their responses to the problems of their age remind us why it is useful to study history and escape the grip of the immediately relevant."
— The Weekly Standard
"Though Burnham and Meyer passed from the scene some time ago, two new biographies, published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, assure that they will not fade into oblivion. Both books are meticulous works of intellectual history, recording the full trajectory of their subjects' ideas while giving spare attention to the details of their personal lives. … The books'…focus does usefully enable one to follow the evolution of American conservative thought during the decades of its resurrection."
—Commentary
"Kevin J. Smant's Principle and Heresies: Frank S Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement presents the life of Meyer as literary editor of National Review to help define modern conservatism."
— Foreword
"Smant summarizes Meyer's achievement well."
— National Review
"Since World War II no event in American history has been more important than the rise of the conservative movement, with its fusion of political and cultural aims and its determination to translate core principles into a program of action. No one gave more of himself to that movement, and very few had more to give, than Frank Meyer- Communist turned Republican, rigorous theorist and passionate literary man, astute organizer and sensitive mentor (to Garry Wills, among others). His story deserves telling, and Kevin Smant has done it full justice."
— Sam Tanenhaus, author, Whittaker Chambers: A Biography
"Thirty years after his death, Frank S. Meyer remains one of the most interesting and thoughtful defenders of American freedom. It was Meyer's insight (developed with all the force of his colorful personality) that in the American context the seemingly contradictory positions of classical liberalism, with its emphasis on liberty, and traditional conservatism, with its concern for virtue, were not only reconcilable, but dependent on each other. This fusionist position needs to be studied again by each generation of American conservatives."
— William C. Dennis, editor of the Liberty Fund edition of In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays
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