A Patriot’s History of the Modern World: Vol. II: From the Cold War to the Age of Entitlement, 1945–2012

Rock-ribbed Americanism confronts communism abroad and liberalism at home in this conservatives’ chronicle of post-war history. Schweikart and Dougherty (A Patriot’s History of the Modern World, Vol. I) continue their account of how an “American exceptionalism” based on Christianity, private property, common law, and free markets shaped the world. Their narrative is equal parts glory and gloom, as America leads the capitalist democracies to victory over the communist bloc in the Cold War only to be undermined by a degenerate welfare-state socialism pushed by domestic progressives advocating “the soft slavery of entitlements and the silver shackles of government support.” The authors’ sweeping panorama takes in war, geopolitics, economics, culture, and sexual mores, all filtered through a staunchly conservative viewpoint spiced with polemical digressions on global warming alarmism, diet fads, and other topics. Their critique of left-liberal historiography is spirited—a discussion of Soviet spies in the United States is particularly revealing—but their platform is clear, as when they repeat claims about John Kerry’s Vietnam service and Barack Obama’s birthplace. The result is a history dear to the right-wing audience. (Dec.)