Sign-In
Cart
The Conservative Frontier: Texas and the Origins of the New Right
Hardcover
General Political ScienceRegional: Southwest
Publisher Price: $34.95
ISBN13: 9781477332641
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: Oct 7 2025
Pages: 512
Weight: 2.15
Height: 1.60 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
2026 Al Lowman Memorial Prize, Texas State Historical Association (TSHA)
Shortlisted, CSAW Bonney MacDonald Outstanding Book Award
How West Texas business and culture molded the rise of conservatism in the United States.
Much of what we understand as modern American political conservatism was born in West Texas, where today it predominates. How did the people of such a vast region--larger than New England and encompassing big cities like Lubbock and Amarillo, as well as tiny towns from Anson to Dalhart--develop such a uniform political culture? And why and how did it go national?
Jeff Roche finds answers in the history of what he calls cowboy conservatism. Political power players matter in this story, but so do football coaches, newspaper editors, and a breakfast cereal tycoon who founded a capitalist utopia. The Conservative Frontier follows these and other figures as they promoted an ideology grounded in the entrepreneurial and proto-libertarian attitudes of nineteenth-century Texas ranchers, including a fierce devotion to both individualism and small-town notions of community responsibility. This political sensibility was in turn popularized by its association with the mythology and iconography of the cowboy as imagined in twentieth-century mass media. By the 1970s and the rise of Ronald Reagan, Roche shows, it was clear that the cowboy conservatism of West Texas had set the stage for the emergence of the New Right--the more professionalized and tech-savvy operation that dominated national conservative politics for the next quarter century.
Also from
Roche, Jeff
Restructured Resistance: The Sibley Commission and the Politics of Desegregation in Georgia
Roche, Jeff
Paperback
Also in
Regional: Southwest
The Lost Cities of El Norte: Coronado's Quest, the Unconquered West, and the Birth of American Indian Resistance
Stark, Peter
Hardcover
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
Blitzer, Jonathan
Paperback
The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
The Myth of Red Texas: Cowboys, Populism, and Class War in the Radical South
Griscom, David
Paperback
Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition): A Town, a Team, and a Dream
Bissinger, H. G.
Paperback
The Grand Canyon: Native People and Early Visitors
Stampoulos, Linda L.
Shields, Kenneth D., Jr.
Paperback
The Case of the Autographed Corpse: A Medicine Man and a Mystery Writer in Pursuit of Justice
El-Hai, Jack
Hardcover
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
Blitzer, Jonathan
Hardcover
Language of Blood: The Making of Spanish-American Identity in New Mexico, 1880s-1930s
Nieto-Phillips, John M.
Paperback
The Counter Revolution of 1836: Texas slavery & Jim Crow and the roots of American Fascism
Horne, Gerald
Paperback
The Apache Wars: The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History
Hutton, Paul Andrew
Paperback
A Big Mess in Texas: The Miraculous, Disastrous 1952 Dallas Texans and the Craziest Untold Story in NFL History
Fleming, David
Hardcover
Those Who Walked Before: Fossil Footprints at White Sands
Odess, Daniel
Bennett, Matthew
Bustos, David F.
Paperback
Ladies of the Canyons: A League of Extraordinary Women and Their Adventures in the American Southwest
Poling-Kempes, Lesley
Paperback
Ribbons of Green: The Rio Grande and the Making of Modern Albuquerque
Berrens, Robert P.
Fleck, John
Paperback
Todos Los Que Se Han Ido Están Aquí / Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
Blitzer, Jonathan
Paperback
Cricket in the Web: The 1949 Unsolved Murder that Unraveled Politics in New Mexico
Moore, Paula
Paperback
The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Hardcover
Voces del Pueblo: Artists of the Levantamiento Chicano in New Mexico
Hernández-Durán, Ray
Vásquez, Irene
Paperback
The River Wild: A Celebrated Journey Down the Whitewater Rapids of the Grand Canyon
Kuhne, Cecil
Paperback
Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition): A Town, a Team, and a Dream (Anniversary)
Bissinger, H. G.
Hardcover
Queen of All Mayhem: The Blood-Soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr, the Most Dangerous Woman in the West
Huckelbridge, Dane
Hardcover
Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range
Debuys, William
Paperback
The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral-And How It Changed the American West
Guinn, Jeff
Paperback
Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity, and Resilience
Salmón, Enrique
Paperback
San Antonio and Its Missions: Three Centuries of History, Memory, and Heritage
Kitchens, Joel Daniel
Hardcover
Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples With Its Historical Racial Trauma
Johnson, Hannibal B.
Paperback
Enslaved on the Trail of Tears: Race, Removal and the Transformation of Indian Territory
Ligon, Terry J.
Hardcover
Brown and Blue: Mexican Americans, Law Enforcement, and Civil Rights in the Southwest, 1935-2025
Behnken, Brian D.
Paperback
Enslaved on the Trail of Tears: Race, Removal, and the Transformation of Indian Territory
Ligon, Terry J.
Paperback
Denton Women's Interracial Fellowship: Leading a Texas City's Desegregation
Ramsay, Annetta
Hardcover
Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre
Ball, Alverne
Hardcover
Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment
Radford, Benjamin
Paperback
Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football
Dent, Jim
Paperback
When the Moment Chose Me: The Day ISIS Came to Garland, TX
Hughbank D. Mgt, Richard J.
Stevens, Gregory B.
Hardcover
The Great Oklahoma Swindle: Race, Religion, and Lies in America's Weirdest State
Cobb, Russell
Paperback
The Water Cries: Uncovering the Slave Auction Houses of Galveston, Texas
Griffin, Anthony Paul
Paperback
Arizona Outlaws and Lawmen: Gunslingers, Bandits, Heroes and Peacekeepers
Trimble, Marshall
Paperback
When the Moment Chose Me: The Day ISIS Came to Garland, TX
Stevens, Gregory B.
Hughbank D. Mgt, Richard J.
Paperback
Ghosts of Crook County: An Oil Fortune, a Phantom Child, and the Fight for Indigenous Land
Cobb, Russell
Paperback
Progress Denied: Quakertown, White Supremacy, and the Illusion of Democracy in Denton, Texas, 1850-1925 Volume 12
Teague, Hollie A.
Hardcover
A Culinary Journey Through Texas History: A State Historic Sites Cookbook
Texas Historical Commission
Hardcover
The Adobe Kingdom: New Mexico 1598-1958 as experienced by the families Lucero de Godoy y Baca
Lucero, Donald L.
Paperback
Surviving Desires: Making and Selling Native Jewellery in the American Southwest
Lidchi, Henrietta
Paperback
We Fought Back: The Black Legal Struggle for Education in Oklahoma Territory
Doolittle, Sara
Hardcover
Los Arabes of New Mexico: Compadres from a Distant Land (Large Print Edition)
Ghattas, Monika White
Paperback
Black Wall Street: From Riot to Renaissance in Tulsa's Historic Greenwood District
Johnson, Hannibal B.
Hardcover
Forgotten Battlefield of the First Texas Revolution: The First Battle of Medina August 18, 1813
Schwarz, Ted
Paperback
War on the Border: Villa, Pershing, the Texas Rangers, and an American Invasion
Guinn, Jeff
Paperback
History of Arizona: A Captivating Guide to Historical Events and Facts You Should Know About the Grand Canyon State
History, Captivating
Hardcover
Texas Takes Shape: A History in Maps from the General Land Office
Stauffer, Brian A.
Lambert, Mark
Harkins, James
Hardcover
The State of Sequoyah: Indigenous Sovereignty and the Quest for an Indian State
Fixico, Donald L.
Hardcover