The Roots of Modern Conservatism

Between 1944 and 1953, a power struggle emerged between New York governor Thomas Dewey and U.S. senator Robert Taft of Ohio that threatened to split the Republican Party. In The Roots of Modern Conservatism , Michael Bowen reveals how this two-man battle for control of the GOP — and the Republican presidential nomination — escalated into a divide of ideology that ultimately determined the party’s political identity. Initially, Bowen argues, the separate Dewey and Taft factions endorsed fairly tr