{"product_id":"strom-thurmonds-america-9780809094806","title":"Strom Thurmond's America","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Do not forget that skill and integrity are the keys to success.\" This was the last piece of advice on a list Will Thurmond gave his son Strom in 1923. The younger Thurmond would keep the words in mind throughout his long and colorful career as one of the Souths last race-baiting demagogues and as a national power broker who  along with Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan  was a major figure in modern conservative politics. But as the historian Joseph Crespino demonstrates in Strom Thurmonds America  the late South Carolina senator followed only part of his fathers counsel. Political skill was the key to Thurmonds many successes; a consummate opportunist  he had less use for integrity. He was a thoroughgoing racisthe is best remembered today for his twenty-four-hour filibuster in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957but he fathered an illegitimate black daughter whose existence he did not publicly acknowledge during his lifetime. A onetime Democrat and labor supporter  he switched parties in 1964 and helped to dismantle New Deal protections for working Americans. If Thurmond was a great hypocrite  though  he was also an innovator who saw the future of conservative politics before just about anyone else. As early as the 1950s  he began to forge alliances with Christian Right activists  and he eagerly took up the causes of big business  military spending  and anticommunism. Crespinos adroit  lucid portrait reveals that Thurmond was  in fact  both a segregationist and a Sunbelt conservative. The implications of this insight are vast. Thurmond was not a curiosity from a bygone era  but rather one of the first conservative Republicans we would recognize as such today. Strom Thurmonds America is about how he made his brand of politics central to American life.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647559163957,"sku":"ByrdShop_0809094800","price":23.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780809094806.jpg?v=1781692721","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/strom-thurmonds-america-9780809094806","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}