"This book makes a number of important contributions to existing work on the rise of the Right, twentieth-century American politics, and the place of moral issues in the modern American conservative movement."--Paula Baker, author of The Moral Frameworks of Public Life: Gender, Politics, and the State in Rural New York, 1870-1930."Richly researched and elegantly written, this gem of a book makes important contributions to the growing literature on the origins and surprising successes of modern conservatism. Underscoring the important role women have played on the Right, this political biography illuminates the relationship between civil society activism and intellectual direction, the importance of anticommunist legacies, and the crucial role played by the heady combination of religion and values in reshaping the polity."--Ira Katznelson, Columbia University, author of When Affirmative Action Was White"In this timely and wonderfully researched book, Critchlow has provided us an invaluable guide to the grassroots politics basic to conservatives' rocky ascendancy over the last half century. The focus on Schlafly and the role of women conservatives make it essential reading for those interested in women's political activism and the making of Republican Right."--Jane Sherron De Hart, University of California at Santa Barbara"Anyone seeking to understand the historical roots of our current culture wars should read this illuminating book. Donald T. Critchlow has written a first-rate biography of a talented political activist---and made an impressive contribution to the historiography of American conservatism."--George Nash, author of The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945"Conservatives will cheer and liberals weep at this careful, thoughtful, and sympathetic portrait of Phyllis Schlafly. Donald Critchlow's uses his compelling biography to tell an even larger story--the triumph of the American Right in the last third of the twentieth century."--James A Morone, author of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History and The Democratic Wish"Phyllis Schlafly is the most consequential woman in American politics since Susan B. Anthony, and as such a full-scale biography is long overdue. Donald Critchlow delivers a thoroughly fair and dispassionate account of this chief scourge of feminism, who ironically proved just how powerful a woman can be in modern America."--Steven F. Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980