Two Suns of the Southwest

Lyndon Johnson, Barry Goldwater, and the 1964 Battle between Liberalism and Conservatism

By: Nancy Beck Young

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Paperback | 30 November 2022

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Over time the presidential election of 1964 has come to be seen as a generational shift, a defining moment in which Americans deliberated between two distinctly different visions for the future. In its juxtaposition of these divergent visions, Two Suns of the Southwest is the first full account of this critical election and its legacy for US politics.

The 1964 election, in Nancy Beck Young's telling, was a contest between two men of the Southwest, each with a very different idea of what the Southwest was and what America should be. Barry Goldwater, the Republican senator from Arizona, came to represent a nostalgic, idealized past, a preservation of traditional order, while Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic incumbent from Texas, looked boldly and hopefully toward an expansive, liberal future of increased opportunity. Thus, as we see in Two Suns of the Southwest, the election was also a showdown between liberalism and conservatism, an election whose outcome would echo throughout the rest of the century. Young explores how demographics, namely the rise of the Sunbelt, factored into the framing and reception of these competing ideas. Her work situates Johnson's Sunbelt liberalism as universalist, designed to create space for all Americans; Goldwater's Sunbelt conservatism was far more restrictive, at least with regard to what the federal government should do. In this respect the election became a debate about individual rights versus legislated equality as priorities of the federal government. Young explores all the cultural and political elements and events that figured in this narrative, allowing Johnson to unite disaffected Republicans with independents and Democrats in a winning coalition.

On a final note Young connects the 1964 election to the current state of our democracy, explaining the irony whereby the winning candidate's vision has grown stale while the losing candidate's has become much more central to American politics.

Industry Reviews

"Clearly written and accessible to the lay reader, Two Suns of the Southwest ably synthesizes the extensive scholarship on Goldwater, Johnson, and the civil rights era, while drawing from archival research to present a straightforward study that would especially benefit undergraduates focused on history and political science."-Journal of Southern History

"Comprehensive and well-researched . . . Young clearly shows [1964] was really a pivotal event in the development of the nation's two major political philosophies. College instructors looking to enliven classroom discussion [should] consider the adoption of Two Suns of the Southwest."-Southwestern Historical Quarterly

"A concise academic history of the presidential election of 1964. A worthy contribution to the American Presidential Elections series, it pays equal attention to Republicans and Democrats, while framing the candidates through their visions of the rising Sunbelt."-Journal of Arizona History

"This important and thoughtful book carefully examines an election that because of the inadequacy of Barry Goldwater as a candidate-and the rout by Johnson-is often overlooked."-VVA Veteran

"Nancy Beck Young has written a well argued and carefully researched study of one of the most significant elections in twentieth-century America. Its echoes still sound today. In style and length and with a balance of primary and secondary sources, it is an ideal primer for classes in American political history."-Robert A. Goldberg, author of Barry Goldwater

"Two Suns of the Southwest tells the riveting and timely story of the 1964 US presidential election, when the lion of modern liberalism, Lyndon Johnson, and cowboy-crusader of western conservatism, Barry Goldwater, waged battle over the future of the country. With careful command of her sources and engaging and approachable prose, Nancy Beck Young shows us how 1964 was both a product of long-simmering tensions in the Democratic Party and especially the GOP, and a dramatic pivot in the political destiny of this country. Highly illuminating and instructive, this is a must read for students of all ages and standing who want to understand one of the most important elections in American history, as well as the political moment in which we now live."-Darren Dochuk, Author of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism

"This is the work of a careful, thoughtful, and thorough scholar. It amazes me to note that we have reached the day in political historiography when we need an overview of the 1964 campaign. There are plenty of works examining specific aspects of the election, detailing Republican, Democratic, and conservative viewpoints. There are works putting the campaigns into the broader context of the key issues of the times and those that analyze the election results' long-term significance. What this author does is to bring all of those perspectives together in one package. This is an important step in the historiography of conservatism. It signals how far we have come from the days when no political historian would examine figures like Goldwater and Buckley without inviting scorn from the academy."-Mary C. Brennan, author of Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP

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