Rating: 
Summary: Not Perfect But Still a Good Critique
Review: Michael Lind was once an up-and-coming conservative activist until he realized that his mentor, William F. Buckley, Jr., refused to condemn televangelist Pat Robertson for his book "The New World Order." Lind became disillusioned with the conservative movement as it veered away from the old-style conservatism to embrace the radical right. Because he has the advantage of having been an insider, his book is much more powerful and persuasive than books by those outside the movement. Lind shows the reader the roots of modern day conservatism, he discusses the think tanks that are behind much of today's conservative thought, and he focuses on three conservative hoaxes very popular with the public. The best part of his book, however, is a chapter based upon a review Lind wrote in the New York Review of Books about Pat Robertson's "The New World Order." Lind is absolutely brilliant in exposing Robertson's plagarism of anti-Semitic works which Robertson in turn sanitized to a more conventional conspiracy theory. And yet there was very little negative comment about Robertson, especially from fellow conservatives. Lind calls this silence a result of a "no enemies to the right" policy. Lind's book isn't perfect. His explanation of the genealogy of American political thought becomes rather confusing in places. Some readers will no doubt object to Lind's attitude toward affirmative action (he's against it). But all in all, it is still an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: Not Perfect But Still a Good Critique
Review: Michael Lind was once an up-and-coming conservative activist until he realized that his mentor, William F. Buckley, Jr., refused to condemn televangelist Pat Robertson for his book "The New World Order." Lind became disillusioned with the conservative movement as it veered away from the old-style conservatism to embrace the radical right. Because he has the advantage of having been an insider, his book is much more powerful and persuasive than books by those outside the movement. Lind shows the reader the roots of modern day conservatism, he discusses the think tanks that are behind much of today's conservative thought, and he focuses on three conservative hoaxes very popular with the public. The best part of his book, however, is a chapter based upon a review Lind wrote in the New York Review of Books about Pat Robertson's "The New World Order." Lind is absolutely brilliant in exposing Robertson's plagarism of anti-Semitic works which Robertson in turn sanitized to a more conventional conspiracy theory. And yet there was very little negative comment about Robertson, especially from fellow conservatives. Lind calls this silence a result of a "no enemies to the right" policy. Lind's book isn't perfect. His explanation of the genealogy of American political thought becomes rather confusing in places. Some readers will no doubt object to Lind's attitude toward affirmative action (he's against it). But all in all, it is still an excellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: Misguided, often wrong, leftist pablum....
Review: More misguided pablum from the "annointed" perspective of a self-righteous, dogmatic leftist. Fails to accurately portray conservatives, or to capture real conservative viewpoints. The dissection of conservatism is almost laughable at points due to the author's bias. Definitely a laugh a minute belly buster for any true conservatives. You will see why the left continues to misunderstand, and demonize conservatives.
Rating:
Summary: Michael Lind's book is wrong for everybody.
Review: The author of this book attempts to show how his revulsion with "conservative Republican" policies had caused to defect to a left-of-center posture. However, his description of his own personal thoughts reveals that he was never really a conservative at all, despite hi association with William F. Buckley, Jr. and other conservatives. Furthermore, his analysis is deeply flawed in that he shows an almost complete lack of understanding of economics. Also, in this book the author does not shy away from twisting historical facts in a way to present his one-sided account of the conservative intellectual movement. About the only redeeming quality of this book is that the author does point out some faults among conservatrive, namely, the desire to maintain a certain orthodoxy. However, he then goes to establish an orthodoxy of his own and claims that anyone that does not agree cannot be a true conservative. As if anyone would take him seriously after writing passages which border on slander.
Rating: 
Summary: Not always right, but a must-read anyway
Review: The hostile reviewers of this book miss the point. Lind is not saying that all conservatives are racist. Rather, he's explaining how the modern conservative movement is influenced by racist and xenophobic thought. He openly admits that many conservatives are admirable. <P>Bottom line, this book needs some rewrites. And, Lind's economics and policy prescriptions are debatable at best. But, a good 15-30% of the conservative vote, nationwide, comes from people who'd be voting for the "One Nation" movement in Australia, or the National Front in France--a.k.a., rabid racists and intolerant religious fanatics. That's the truth, and Democrats and Republicans should read this book to understand the implications of that fact for "public discourse" and electoral politics.
Rating: 
Summary: weak/watered down centrist blather
Review: The only reason I read Lind's book at all is because I bought it on the bargain books table at my local bookstore and because, once upon a time, back when I was 19-20, I too was an unreflective, Right Winger, militaristic, pseudo-fascistic. Anyway, I evetually found Enlightenment and am proudly, defiantly Leftist (and unabashedly Marxist) today. Mr. Lind, by contrast, is a "former conservative" turned tepid centrist. I welcome his polemic against the right, but he doesn't go far enough and he still has a lot of screwy ideas inherited from his former days on the Right. There are plenty of much better Leftist critiques out there written by writers with far more conviction, passion and eloquence than this light-weight. "With friends like this..." on the Left...who needs enemies? Mr. Lind might meet the critera of "Leftist" vis a vis such mainstream national shows as Crossfire, but he's no Leftist in my book. Just a tepid centrist with a bad conscience who has a lot more thinking and reading to do. Read Jim Hightower or Molly Ivins, because Mr. Lind's centrist blather is a waste of time.
Rating:
Summary: Good potential ruined by bigotry
Review: This book has some good things to say - it correctly notes that cynical politicians use the rhetoric of a "culture war" to win support for libertarian economic policies that undermine the welfare of the average American. However, it goes on to mercilessly (and inaccurately) bash average Americans and their moral concerns, naively assuming that anyone who opposes abortion or worries that freedom of speech is being eroded by political correctness (a la "gay rights" or a hundred other leftist movements) is in reality just an in-bred, southern fundamentalist. I was particularly annoyed by Lind's arrogant dismissal of "evangelicals" as "right-wing sectarians" and racists. The average evangelical is a non-white woman in a Third World country; in fact, evangelicals are widely despised, and persecuted much like the Jews were prior to World War 2. In my own evangelical community, we campaign to end slavery in the Third World, reform prisons, and reconcile whites and blacks. We're hardly unique among Baptists and Pentecostals for these emphases. It's obvious that Mr. Lind has never even spent a day among real evangelicals, and he sees fit to think we're all brainwashed drones who follow Pat Robertson. If he had made similar comments about Catholics, his career would be over. It's time to end the double-standard and call bigotry by its name.
Rating:
Summary: Good potential ruined by bigotry
Review: This book has some good things to say - it correctly notes that cynical politicians use the rhetoric of a "culture war" to win support for libertarian economic policies that undermine the welfare of the average American. However, it goes on to mercilessly (and inaccurately) bash average Americans and their moral concerns, naively assuming that anyone who opposes abortion or worries that freedom of speech is being eroded by political correctness (a la "gay rights" or a hundred other leftist movements) is in reality just an in-bred, southern fundamentalist. I was particularly annoyed by Lind's arrogant dismissal of "evangelicals" as "right-wing sectarians" and racists. The average evangelical is a non-white woman in a Third World country; in fact, evangelicals are widely despised, and persecuted much like the Jews were prior to World War 2. In my own evangelical community, we campaign to end slavery in the Third World, reform prisons, and reconcile whites and blacks. We're hardly unique among Baptists and Pentecostals for these emphases. It's obvious that Mr. Lind has never even spent a day among real evangelicals, and he sees fit to think we're all brainwashed drones who follow Pat Robertson. If he had made similar comments about Catholics, his career would be over. It's time to end the double-standard and call bigotry by its name.
Rating:
Summary: Pure garbage
Review: This book takes the common tact of the left which is to make a point by name calling. As with most books written on this subject, this fails to stand up to logic and common sense.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: This devastatingly detailed dissection of the rancid American right puts the final nail in the coffin of all those blowhards and revisionists who have tried to distort the facts of history. Farewell George will, David Horowitz, Charles Murray, WF Buckley, Norman Podhoretz, et. al. Lind has unmasked the emptiness of your rhetoric and the abject failure of your ideas. Lind does not engage in a lot of fancy polemic. He merely shows the ugliness of American conservatism by exposing their actions and words. Lind lets the right die by its own hand.
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