I recently linked to Rick Perlstein's story of rapture Christian's influence on US Israeli policy: The Jesus Landing Pad in the Village Voice. (It's at the bottom of the post.) If you haven't read it, you might check it out. I received a note from Rick...

My book on the rise of the conservative movement, BEFORE THE STORM: BARRY GOLWATER AND THE UNMAKING OF THE AMERICAN CONSENSUS, has been very well received. The reviewer in The Nation wrote: "I've read Before the Storm twice and intend to go on reading it, as my opiate, as long as Bush is in the White House.... Before the Storm is the story of such a fascinating era and Perlstein is such a great storyteller--one of the most enjoyable historians I've read--that I guarantee for a while you will simply forget the dreariness of today's politics." In the Village Voice: ". Daring, virtuosic writing, and encyclopedic mastery make the book's title and its Goldwater focus inadequate to all Perlstein accomplishes. This is an exciting volume, an outstanding debut. It goes beyond conservatism. It ups the ante on what popular history can, and should, do." OK. Enough. I'm blushing. If you liked "The Jesus Landing Pad: Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move," you'll, um, love BEFORE THE STORM.

I remember watching reporter John Chancellor being being physically ejected from the 1964 Goldwater Republican convention. Only a taste of how conservative Republicans deal with those saying what they don't want to hear. This book covers the beginnings of where we are now. It's now in my wish list. Again, the link to the book: BEFORE THE STORM: BARRY GOLWATER AND THE UNMAKING OF THE AMERICAN CONSENSUS.