Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement

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.