Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party

By Geoffrey Kabaservice

Categories: History, Politics & Social Sciences

Rule and Ruin (2012) is historian Geoffrey Kabaservice's account of how moderate Republicans lost their place in the party, from Dwight Eisenhower's presidency through the rise of the Tea Party. Kabaservice argues that the decline began decades earlier than many accounts claim, tracing a long struggle that sharpened around Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign and continued through later conservative organizing. Drawing on archives and interviews, he follows figures such as Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney and shows how fiscal restraint once sat beside civil-rights and social engagement inside the GOP.

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• Fareed Zakaria: “As Geoffrey Kabaservice documents in his illuminating book, “Rule and Ruin,” the party had prided itself on its progressive stand on race from Abraham Lincoln onward.”