During the forty years of division, the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany were the only organizations to retain strong ties and organizational structures: they embodied continuity in a country marked by discontinuity. As such, the churches were both expected to undergo smooth and rapid institutional consolidation and undertake an active role in the public realm of the new eastern German states in the 1990s. Yet critical voices were heard over the West German system of church-state relations and the public role it confers on religious organizations, and critics often expressed the idea that despite all their difficulties, something precious was lost in the collapse of the German democratic republic. Against this backdrop, the author delineates the conflicting conceptions of the Protestant and Catholic churches' public role and pays special attention to the East German model, or what is generally termed the "positive experiences of the GDR and the Wende."

A bold new history of modern conservatism that finds its origins in the populist right-wing politics of the 1990s Ronald Reagan has long been lionized for building a conservative coalition sustained by an optimistic vision of American exceptionalism, small government, and free markets. But as historian Nicole Hemmer reveals, the Reagan coalition was short-lived; it fell apart as soon as its charismatic leader left office. In the 1990s — a decade that has yet to be recognized as the breeding ground for today’s polarizing politics — changing demographics and the emergence of a new political-entertainment media fueled the rise of combative far-right politicians and pundits. These partisans, from Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, forged a new American right that emphasized anti-globalism, appeals to white resentment, and skepticism about democracy itself. Partisans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the crisis of American politics today.

Many conservatives want to know: Where did the Right go wrong? Justin Raimondo provides the answer in this captivating narrative. Raimondo shows how the noninterventionist Old Right - which included half-forgotten giants and prophets such as Senator Robert A. Taft, Garet Garrett, and Colonel Robert McCormick - was supplanted in influence by a Right that made its peace with bigger government at home and "perpetual war for perpetual peace" abroad. First published in 1993, Reclaiming the American Right is as timely as ever. This new edition includes commentary by Pat Buchanan, political scientist George W. Carey, Chronicles executive editor Scott Richert, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute's David Gordon.

Embracing some of Germany's best known writers, academics, journalists and philosophers, the Conservative Revolution in the Weimar Republic was the intellectual vanguard of the Right. By approaching the Conservative Revolution as an intellectual movement, this study sheds new light on the evolution of its ideas on the meaning of the First World War, its appropriation of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, its enthusiasm for political activism and a strong leader, and its ambiguous relationship with National Socialism.

Boston Congregationalist ministers Charles Chauncy (1705-1787) and Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766) were significant political as well as religious leaders in colonial and revolutionary New England. Scholars have often stressed their influence on major shifts in New England theology, and have also portrayed Mayhew as an influential preacher, whose works helped shape American revolutionary ideology, and Chauncy as an active leader of the patriot cause. Through a deeply contextualised re-examination of the two ministers as ‘men of their times’, Oakes offers a fresh, comparative interpretation of how their religious and political views changed and interacted over decades. The result is a thoroughly revised reading of Chauncy’s and Mayhew’s most innovative ideas. Conservative Revolutionaries unearths strongly traditionalist elements in their belief systems, focussing on their shared commitment to a dissenting worldview based on the ideals of their Protestant New England and British heritage. Oakes concludes with a provocative exploration of how their shifting theological and political positions may have helped redefine prevailing notions of human identity, capability, and destiny.

Freedom fighters. Guerrilla warriors. Soldiers of fortune. The many civil wars and rebellions against communist governments drew heavily from this cast of characters. Yet from Nicaragua to Afghanistan, Vietnam to Angola, Cuba to the Congo, the connections between these anticommunist groups have remained hazy and their coordination obscure. Yet as Kyle Burke reveals, these conflicts were the product of a rising movement that sought paramilitary action against communism worldwide. Tacking between the United States and many other countries, Burke offers an international history not only of the paramilitaries who started and waged small wars in the second half of the twentieth century but of conservatism in the Cold War era. From the start of the Cold War, Burke shows, leading U.S. conservatives and their allies abroad dreamed of an international anticommunist revolution. They pinned their hopes to armed men, freedom fighters who could unravel communist states from within. And so they fashioned a global network of activists and state officials, guerrillas and mercenaries, ex-spies and ex-soldiers to sponsor paramilitary campaigns in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Blurring the line between state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, this armed crusade helped radicalize right-wing groups in the United States while also generating new forms of privatized warfare abroad.