Review: They Knew They Were Right
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400129 |
| Author | Jeffrey Mankoff |
| Published date | 01 March 2009 |
| Date | 01 March 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| International Journal | Winter 2008-09 | 299 |
| Reviews |
THEY KNEW THEY WERE RIGHT
The Rise of the Neocons
Jacob Heilbrunn
New York: Doubleday, 2008. 336 pp, $30.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0385511810)
Few political labels of recent vintage have simultaneously generated as much
vitriol and as much confusion as “neoconservative.” In this well-researched,
comprehensive account, self-confessed neocon apostate Jacob Heilbrunn sets
out to illuminate neoconservatism’s genesis, development on the fringes of
government and academia, rise to prominence, and return to the wilderness
following the debacle in Iraq. The book’s biggest contribution is its attention
to detail a nd a sprawling narrative that traces neoconservatism’s origins to
the earliest years of the 20th century.
In constructing this account, however, Heilbrunn fails to clarify what,
exactly, it means to be a neocons ervative. How much c ontinuity exists
between proponents of rolling back communism in the 1950s and supporters
of overthrowing Arab dictatorships in the 21st century? Heilbrunn assumes
that, because many of the names are the same, so too are the ideas. Is
neoconservatism a fundamentally American phenomenon, or, as he suggests
at one point, does it exist “in some form…in every society” (22)? The failure
to grapple with these questions makes the book more of a chronicle than a
work of real historical analysis.
Heilbrunn’s own neocon pedigree is impeccable—and important, since
one of his major arguments is that the neocon movement is ultimately as
much ab out filial piet y as it is about pol icy positions (107). The son of a
Jewish refugee and student of Leo St rauss, Heilbrunn was fami liar with
neocon luminaries like Melvin Lasky, Irving Kristol, and Norman Podhoretz
while still in high school. Heilbrunn’s Jewish heritage is also important, since
he argues that neoconservatism is “largely a Jewish movement,” originating
with American Jews who had escaped Nazism and saw a powerful, self-
confident America as the only defence against the new totalitarian menace of
the Soviet Union (14).
Many neocons began as doctrinaire Trotskyists, eager to destroy the old
order that had excluded and persecuted them (including America’s WASP
establishment). Unfortunately, Heilbrunn passes over the critical question of
why so many Jewish Trotskyists followed Kristol into an unwavering defence
of Americ an foreign policy during the Cold War. T his lack of attention to
intellectual transformations is symptomatic of Heilbrunn’s preference for
documentation over synthesis.
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