Watch on the Right: Conservative Intellectuals in the Reagan Era

Hoeveler's probing study spotlights prominent conservative thinkers who, though differing in ideas and style, share a concern for unnecessary-implied by their concern. aa a sustaining core of values. Profiled are such figures as Irving Kristol, the ``Godfather of conservatism''; William F. Buckley, Jr., ``America's all-purpose conservative thinker''; Jeane Kirkpatrick, ``neoconservative pioneer,'' and George Will, whom Hoeveler decrees an American Whig. There is a chapter on R. Emmett Tyrell Jr., who represents the libertarian tradition in American conservatism, and another on Michael Novak and his ideological journey ``from the ramparts of the Left to neo-conservative prominence.'' Hoeveler ( The New Humanism ) comments energetically on many other conservative intellectuals including Norman Podhoretz, Robert Nisbet, Hilton Kramer and Alan Bloom. The book confirms the pluralistic nature of American conservatism in the 1970s and '80s, and serves to illuminate conservative thought in the wider context of America's intellectual tradition. (Apr.)