Joseph Burrell grew up in rural North Carolina, Virginia, Detroit, and Washington DC. After high school he enlisted in the US Marine Corps, then earned a degree at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. Burrell returned to Washington DC as a teacher, then developed a career with the US Department of Justice. As soon as conditions permitted he went home to the mountains of North Carolina. He has written two other nonfiction books, False Gods and Fake Patriots, and Four -Isms: Capitalism, Communism, Christianism and Atheism.

The narrative portion of this book discusses the nature of the Republican Party and describes an important change by the Eisenhower administration in this country’s foreign policy — from the...

The narrative portion of this book discusses the nature of the Republican Party and describes an important change by the Eisenhower administration in this country’s foreign policy — from the “containment” of communism policy of the Truman administration to a new policy of political warfare.

The narrative also discusses the Republican Party’s overblown and misdirected anti-communism and its fascist orientation.

Two thirds of the book consists of quotations from various books, magazines, and newspapers, most from conservatives and Republicans. The selected quotations are grouped to tell a story. One group of quotes briefly describes American imperialism and expansionism, especially as carried out by the Polk and McKinley administrations. That part of the book then describes the attacks against Iraq in considerable detail. Other groupings of quotations set forth the conservative belief system by focusing on the idea of democracy, secularism, relativism, christian and capitalist exceptionalism, and social Darwinism, and elucidate Republican beliefs regarding “cashocracy,” democratic government, communists, Democrats, and liberals.

The final chapter provides quotations regarding the beliefs of liberal democrats.

This is a work that will appeal to readers of Blowback by Chalmers Johnson and Take Them at Their Words by Bruce J. Miller with Diana Maio. Some of the observations and ideas in this book are set forth in The Declassified Eisenhower by Blanche Wiesen Cook and in Evolution and Human Nature by Richard Morris.