Was the “conservative turn” of the mid-twentieth century something lasting in American politics—an enduring development in the direction of political and intellectual maturity? Or was it, instead, an anomalous and fleeting episode of sobriety in the otherwise troubled and turbulent history of American democracy? In preparing us to ponder these searching and essential questions, Michael Kimmage has done more than produce an important work of scholarship. He has contributed to our civic self-understanding.