Thinking History, Fighting Evil: Neoconservatives and the Perils of Analogy in American Politics

This accessible study critiques the rise of a new exceptionalism: a victim-centered nationalism promoted by American conservatives since the 1980s, borrowing imagery and vocabulary from the civil rights era and political correctness movements of the left.Thinking History, Fighting Evil explores the instrumentalization of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism in the service of U.S. foreign policy, paying attention to how conservatives approach "far enemies" (Islamism), "near enemies" (Europe and Latin America), and the "enemies within" (the domestic left).