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Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism
by Edward H. Miller
The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism's most insidious seeds.
Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)—founder of the John Birch Society—is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H. Miller delves deep into the life of an overlooked figure whose ideas nevertheless reshaped the American right.
A child prodigy who entered college at age 12, Welch became an unlikely candy magnate, founding the company that created Sugar Daddies, Junior Mints, and other famed confections. In 1958, he funneled his wealth into establishing the organization that would define his legacy and change the face of American politics: the John Birch Society. Though the group's paranoiac right-wing nativism was dismissed by conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley, its ideas gradually moved from the far-right fringe into the mainstream. By exploring the development of Welch's political worldview, A Conspiratorial Life shows how the John Birch Society's rabid libertarianism—and its highly effective grassroots networking—became a profound, yet often ignored or derided influence on the modern Republican Party. Miller convincingly connects the accusatory conservatism of the midcentury John Birch Society to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Tea Party, the Trump administration, Q, and more. As this book makes clear, whether or not you know his name or what he accomplished, it's hard to deny that we're living in Robert Welch's America.
"In this immersive biography, Miller traces the roots of today's right-wing conspiracy theories to John Birch Society founder Robert Welch ... Scrupulously researched and lucidly written, this is an enlightening study of an overlooked yet influential figure in American politics." ―Publishers Weekly
"A welcome contribution to the history of modern right-wing politics at its extremes." ―Kirkus Reviews
"In this highly readable, insightful biography of Robert Welch, Miller uses his unique access into Welch's papers to reveal a man much more important to modern American conservatism than we have previously understood. Miller shows how, far from being marginalized to the fringes of the movement, Welch was central to creating the destructive conspiratorial worldview that now dominates our politics." ―Heather Cox Richardson, author of Letters from an American
This information about A Conspiratorial Life was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edward H. Miller is associate teaching professor at Northeastern University and the author of A Conspiratorial Life: Robert Welch, the John Birch Society, and the Revolution of American Conservatism and Nut Country: Right Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
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