ABSTRACT
Conservatism poses a special problem for American historians. Many scholars cannot find an important conservative tradition in the American past. The conservative movement that Ronald Reagan led had deep roots in the American past. Its emergence as a powerful force in the last half of the twentieth century puzzled many scholars because they had relegated conservatism to the periphery of American history. However, conservatism had always offered a stable core of American ideas and values, and it remained a major force when it was presumably at its weakest, during the New Deal. Reagan portrayed the United States as humanity's last hope and argued that the election would determine if people would maintain their heritage of freedom. Conservatism retained its base of traditional, libertarian, and anticommunist adherents, and added a populist cast from the New Right and the Religious Right, and reestablished a profitable relationship with a newly mobilized corporate community.
