After the Hangover: The conservatives Road to Recovery by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

After The Hangover- The Conservatives Road to Recovery by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

April 23rd, 2010 |

Author: admin

After the Hangover - The Conservatives Road to Recovery by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

About The Book:

An insider's investigation of the state of the post-Bush Conservative movement in the United States today. The author-intimately familiar with the ideology and personalities of the conservative movement in the United States from the inside-analyzes who was right and what went wrong. And, in the process, he outlines the conservative agenda for the "next ascendancy."

After the Hangover is an intimate look at the history of the Conservative Movement told by one of the leaders within the movement itself. Mr. Tyrrell gives us an in depth look at not only what brought the conservative movement to where it is today but why it is where it is. Filled with history on past leaders from Ronald Reagan and William F Buckley Jr. to today's leaders such as Sarah Palin.

My Opinion:

I really wanted to like this book. I was actually a little excited about it. I wanted to learn more about the conservative movement and to see where it was going and how we'd get it there. However, I was let down quite a bit by this book.

I haven't considered myself a "conservative" for very long. Actually I considered myself a liberal until about 3 years ago. Although my transformation into a conservative started on 9/11, and I was raised with mostly fiscally conservative values. So the leap into full on conservatism wasn't a big one for me. However, I didn't know much about the movement itself and I've been wanting to know more. I was hopeful that this book would not only give me more history but give me direction on where to go from here.

What I found in this book was more self congratulatory than history. I pride myself on being intelligent, well spoken and well read, though I certainly wouldn't consider myself an "intellectual", I by no means am stupid. However, this book and the way that Mr. Tyrrell writes could make even the best English professor feel dumb. If I were listening to him talk I would say he likes to hear his own voice... this is certainly true for his writing. He uses words that are not $12 words, but more like $300 words. I've never before had to run to a dictionary so many times while reading a book in my life! And yet I had to do this constantly and wondered if he were writing with a thesaurus by his computer simply to make himself sound more intelligent than anyone else.

Then there is an entire chapter devoted to his obvious obsession with William F Buckley Jr. Which, albeit I know very little about, I still know nothing about him after reading 35 pages devoted to "Bill". I'm not sure why this chapter was in the book, except to espouse how wonderful "Bill" was and how close a relationship Mr. Tyrrell had with him... that's about all I learned from that chapter.

This was a very difficult book to read. I did learn some new things about conservatism and where it came from, but did not learn where it was going or how it would get there. I would not suggest this book to the casual reader. Nor would I suggest it to someone who was looking for answers or a guide to "The Conservatives Road to Recovery". It is a good book to learn some interesting history on conservatism and where it came from. However that is the extinct of its usefulness.

My rating: 2.0 stars