Liberalism

Popular accounts of the 1945-1973 period begin with the establishment of liberal consensus and end with ideological polarization. Recent scholarship on conservatism has demonstrated its deep roots in the mid-twentieth-century U.S., when it was once believed that liberal hegemony reigned. But historians also require a revised understanding of postwar liberalism. By the mid-1960s, most historical narratives shift away from liberalism toward its challengers from the left and the right. Accordingly, historians have missed important transformations within liberalism itself.

I will argue that splitting of liberalism was one of the most important political and intellectual developments during this period. Not only was postwar liberalism contested from outside, but rifts also emerged within it. The emergence of militant social movements pushed some liberals to develop more radical critiques of American society. At the same time, other liberals, who came to be known as “neoconservatives,” rushed to defend the established social order. This split suggests that postwar liberalism was never as coherent and consensual as its proponents believed. By the 1970s, the external challenges faced by liberalism in a period of intense social conflict and rapid cultural change had widened already existing fissures.

I will draw evidence from two existing research projects. My book manuscript on the Moynihan Report controversy demonstrates how the report catalyzed a decades-long debate that shattered core mid-twentieth-century liberal assumptions about race, family, and government. Meanwhile, my research on liberal responses to the emergence of the New Left demonstrates that radical challenges also opened up deep divisions among postwar liberals.