Overview

On the morning of November 22, 1963, President Kennedy told Jackie as they started for Dallas, “We’re heading into nut country today.” That day’s events ultimately obscured and revealed just how right he was: Oswald was a lone gunman, but the city that surrounded him was full of people who hated Kennedy and everything he stood for, led by a powerful group of ultraconservatives who would eventually remake the Republican party in their own image. In Nut Country, Edward H. Miller tells the story of that transformation, showing how a group of influential far-right businessmen, religious leaders, and political operatives developed a potent mix of hardline anticommunism, biblical literalism, and racism to generate a violent populism—and widespread power. Though those figures were seen as extreme in Texas and elsewhere, mainstream Republicans nonetheless found themselves forced to make alliances, or tack to the right on topics like segregation. As racial resentment came to fuel the national Republican party’s divisive but effective “Southern Strategy,” the power of the extreme conservatives rooted in Texas only grew. Drawing direct lines from Dallas to DC, Miller's captivating history offers a fresh understanding of the rise of the new Republican Party and the apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and ideological rigidity that remain potent features of our politics today.

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9780226205380

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Edward H. Miller is adjunct professor of history at Northeastern University in Boston.

With Texas-sized ambition and a touch of flair, Edward Miller taps the fascinating history of a surprisingly understudied place--Dallas, the 'Athens of the Southwest'--to reorient our understanding of America's Republican Right. Out of the heated warfare that divided this city's ultra- and moderate conservatives during the 1950s and 1960s emerged a pragmatic, potent, and anxious Republicanism that would capture the south in the 1970s and the nation in the years that followed. Packed full with colorful characters and surprising turning points, rich with historical insight yet pertinent to today, Nut Country is a book that students of U.S. (not just Texas!) history need to digest in order to appreciate why the 'Big D's' brand of politics has long held sway. --Darren Dochuk, author of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt

With Texas-sized ambition and a touch of flair, Edward Miller taps the fascinating history of a surprisingly understudied place--Dallas, the 'Athens of the Southwest'--to reorient our understanding of America's Republican Right. Out of the heated warfare that divided this city's ultra- and moderate conservatives during the 1950s and 1960s emerged a pragmatic, potent, and anxious Republicanism that would capture the south in the 1970s and the nation in the years that followed. Packed full with colorful characters and surprising turning points, rich with historical insight yet pertinent to today, Into Nut Country is a book that students of U.S. (not just Texas!) history need to digest in order to appreciate why the 'Big D's' brand of politics has long held sway. --Darren Dochuk, author of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt

Author Information

Edward H. Miller is adjunct professor of history at Northeastern University in Boston.

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