"Allan J. Lichtman investigates the foundations and history of conservative thought to identify and reveal the central crisis that lies at the heart of conservative principles and today's politics. He explores a century of American conservative politics to demonstrate that professed conservative principles-free enterprise, limited government, fiscal responsibility, states' rights, law and order, personal morality, and American sovereignty-are dispensable notions for public appeal only. Instead, conservatives have only consistently advanced their version of traditional Christian values and support for private (not free) enterprise. Lichtman provides a sweeping history of the American conservative movement from the end of World War I to the present day. He draws on leaders like Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Donald J. Trump, and the conservative Democrats responsible for Jim Crow discrimination in the South. Contrary to those who have described Trump as a deviation from professed core principles, Conservative at the Core ultimately argues that Trump and his allies represents the culmination of the American conservative tradition, consistently upholding and fulfilling conservative nationalist values"-- Provided by publisher.

Preface / S. Dillon Ripley -- Foreword / Wilton S. Dillon -- Introduction / Allan J. Lichtman -- Essays on the Family -- Lessons from Nature? Monogamy among Humans and Other Mammals / Devra G. Kleiman -- The First Americans: Migrations to a New World / T. Dale Stewart -- Continuity across Generations: The Adams Family Myth / David F. Musto -- The Depression Experience in Mens Lives / Glen H. Elder, Jr. and Richard C. Rockwell -- Changing Risks, Changing Adaptations: American Families in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries / John Modell -- Aging Patterns in Black Families / Jacquelyne Johnson Jackson and Bertram Emmanuel Walls -- Kinship, Community, and Locality in American Culture / David M. Schneider -- The Making of a Community: The Role of Women in an Agricultural Setting / Seena B. Kohl -- Caring for the Insane in Ante-Bellum Massachusetts: Family, Community, and State Participation / Barbara G. Rosenkrantz and Maris A Vinovskis -- Roots of the American Family: From Noah to Now / Francis L.K. Hsu -- Workshops and Colloquia -- Family Photo Interpretations (Participants: Joan R. Challinor, Jonathan Garlock, Judith Mara Gutman, Amy Kotkin, Catherine Hanf Noren, Amalie Rothschild, Jamil Simon, William Stapp, Elisabeth Weis) -- Collecting Oral History (Participants: Robert Byington, E. Culpepper Clark, Susan Kalcik, Robert McCarl, Beverly Robinson, Ralph Rinzler, Steven Zeitlin) -- Family Documents (Participants: Allen F. Davis, Richard S. Lackey, Bill R. Linder, Sylvia Wright Mitarachi, James Walker) -- Whither Families? (Participants: Wilton S. Dillon, Jared Hoffman, Francis L.K. Hsu, A. Sidney Johnson III, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Margaret Mead) -- Epilogue / Joan R. Chandler.