Exit Right, Daniel Oppenheimer
Exit Right, Daniel Oppenheimer
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Exit Right
The People Who Left the Left and Reshaped the American Century

Author: Daniel Oppenheimer

Narrator: John Pruden

Unabridged: 13 hr 3 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/02/2016


Synopsis

In Exit Right, Daniel Oppenheimer tells the stories of six major political figures whose journeys away from the left reshaped the contours of American politics in the twentieth century. By going deep into the minds of six apostates—Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, Ronald Reagan, Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Christopher Hitchens—Oppenheimer offers an unusually intimate history of the American left and the right's reaction.

Oppenheimer is a brilliant new voice in political history who has woven together the past century's most important movements into a single book that reveals the roots of American politics. Through the eyes of his six subjects, we see America grow, stumble, and forge ahead—from World War I up through the Great Depression and World War II, from the Red Scare up through the civil rights movement, and from the birth of neoconservatism up through 9/11 and the dawn of the Iraq War.

About Daniel Oppenheimer

Daniel Oppenheimer is a writer and filmmaker whose articles and videos have been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Tablet Magazine, and salon.com. He has an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and is a director of strategic communications at the University of Texas at Austin. Daniel lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Matthew on April 23, 2016

I picked up this book largely due to the chapter on Christopher Hitchens, who has long been a writer I've admired (his support for the Iraq War notwithstanding). I was very interested in seeing a neutral perspective on Hitchens, since I already have read at length what Hitchens himself said about th......more

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on August 27, 2019

This was really an excellent book. More of a character study, of six politicians who started out liberals and then became conservatives. Oppenheimer's writing is really excellent, I believe he is an english professor? It is a nice narrative that takes the readers from the beginning of the 20th centu......more

Goodreads review by Mike on February 28, 2017

I struggled between a 3 and a 4 on this rating. The book presents fascinating history of 6 figures (I almost wrote intellectuals, though no one would _ever_ label Ronald Reagan that way) who had varying degrees of commitment to the left and who eventually migrated to more conservative perspectives.......more

Goodreads review by John on March 22, 2021

Daniel Oppenheimer presents enjoyable biographical sketches of six important Americans who moved Left-to-Right. Five were influential intellectuals; one a future president (Ronald Reagan). Full intellectual changes are traumatic and even destructive to professional and personal arrangements. Why do......more

Goodreads review by Steve on February 07, 2018

It would probably help to know that I'm 69 years old. That is, old enough to be familiar with the last four of the six men profiled, and in fact one of whom gets my occasional contributions. I'm also one who used to be idealistic -- though isn't that to be expected of the young -- as these six were,......more