Book Review: American neoconservatism: the politics and culture of a reactionary idealism

In this book, Jean-Francois Drolet contributes to a critical engagement with neoconservatism at the level of its intellectual foundations. Situated at the interface of the disciplines of IR, political theory and the history of ideas, the book moves beyond recent debates over the intricacies of the Bush administration’s foreign policy to offer a deeper look at the philosophical premises of this ‘new’ conservatism in light of the historical events and changing social compacts that have created a demand for it over the past decades. This is a rich piece of work in which Drolet demonstrates an encyclopaedic knowledge of neoconservatism, finds Daniel Sage.