James J. Kilpatrick

“Traces the intellectual journey of James J. Kilpatrick from regional southern journalist to one of the most prominent conservative commentators of the latter half of the 20th century . . . . It represents an important aspect of the Civil Rights movement.” — Publishers Weekly

“An engrossing new biography. . . . [Hustwit] has done a first-rate job of providing a much-needed biography of one of the South’s most important journalists of the 20th century.” — Raleigh News & Observer

“In this lively and well-researched study, William P. Hustwit places his subject, James J. Kilpatrick, in the vanguard of two movements: the effort to uphold segregation in the South and the rise of conservatism in America.” — American Historical Review

“Hustwit’s study of Kilpatrick as a political and media figure deepens our understanding of the complex relationships connecting opposition to civil rights, media, modern conservatism, and the evolving rhetoric of white racial politics in the second half of the twentieth century.” — Journal of Southern History

“Offers a new perspective on one of the South’s leading segregationists.” — Virginia Magazine

“Recommended. Specialized libraries, upper-division undergraduates and above.” — CHOICE

“This book would be an important source for scholars studying the civil rights movement, southern newspaper history during the mid-twentieth century, or the origins of the radical conservative wing of the twenty-first-century Republican Party.” — Jhistory

“Offers a detailed analysis of how Kilpatrick negotiated, renegotiated, reinvented, and repackaged massive resistance thought into a mainstream container that resonated with society’s conservative turn in post-civil-rights America.” — Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

“Hustwit’s attention to the suppleness and the adaptability of Kilpatrick’s thought is . . . this book’s strength.” — Journal of American Studies

“Hustwit reminds us in this fine biography why Kilpatrick was much more than a television personality.” — The Historian