When Hollywood Was Right

“When Hollywood Was Right offers a lesson for today of how an embattled, factionalized Republican Party came together to elect a principled and pragmatic conservative, Ronald Reagan, to the presidency. Plus this is a damn good read.”

– Barry Goldwater Jr., Former United States Congressman (Republican–California)

“While liberal movie stars vociferously proclaim that the blacklisted Hollywood Ten were innocent of any wrongdoing, Donald T. Critchlow presents the opposite view starting from the Great Depression and ending with the presidential election of Ronald Reagan. Written judiciously with passion and verve, this volume should be standard reading for anyone who wants the explanation of how Republican and Democratic partisans were driven to When Hollywood Was Right – and Left.”

– Irwin F. Gellman, Visiting Scholar of History at Franklin & Marshall College,

author of the upcoming volume, The President and the Apprentice

“This incisive, first-rate study is based on extensive archival research. When Hollywood Was Right masterfully tells how anticommunism drove film industry executives, directors, and stars, allied with business leaders, to remake the Republican Party in California after World War II. As Professor Donald T. Critchlow astutely argues, the result had national implications. These conservatives backed Richard Nixon and ultimately put one of their own, Ronald Reagan, in the White House.”

– William J. Rorabaugh, Professor of History, University of Washington, author of

The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election (2012)

Galley & review copy mailing to major book review outlets: news-magazines; political interest outlets; Jewish interest publications; entertainment outlets; television, talk radio; political commentary and news blogs and sites.

Cambridge Book Club feature