The Hoover History Lab and Hoover Institution Library & Archives invite you to a special hybrid event with Daniel Flynn to discuss his recent book The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer on Tuesday, November 4th from 12:00 - 1:30 p.m. PT in the Shultz Auditorium.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Frank Meyer devised the blueprint for American conservatism—fusionism—championed by Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and so many to this day. Yet long before and far away, Communists in London chanted “Free Frank Meyer!” to block the deportation of a comrade who was their cause célèbre. Those fervent Marxists could never have predicted that their hero would one day provide the intellectual energy necessary to propel conservatives to political power.
The Man Who Invented Conservatism unveils one of the twentieth century’s great untold stories: a Communist turned conservative, an antiwar activist turned soldier, and a free-love enthusiast turned family man whose big idea captured the American Right. This intellectual migration coincided with a clandestine affair inside 10 Downing Street, service as a lieutenant to the man who later constructed the Berlin Wall, and neighborly chats with the pop-star and poet celebrity next door. Present at the creation of National Review, Meyer helped launch Joan Didion’s writing career. From H. G. Wells to Henry Kissinger to Milton Friedman, he rubbed shoulders with everyone who mattered.
Having discovered Meyer’s previously unexamined correspondence in an old soda warehouse, Daniel J. Flynn documents this saga in The Man Who Invented Conservatism, exposing the rivalries, jealousies, friendships, and fights that shaped the movement and what it means to be a conservative today.
This book relied on the papers of not only Frank Meyer but James Burnham and Raymond Morley held at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Flynn, a senior editor with The American Spectator, has authored seven books, including Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas, Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco, and Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and City Journal. He served as a reservist in the U.S. Marines, honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant, from 1994 to 2002. Flynn was selected as a Hoover Institution visiting fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year. He raises his children in Central Massachusetts and reads, writes, submerges, runs, rides, jumps, chops, and climbs at his cabin in Southern Vermont.
FEATURING
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also a columnist for RealClearPolitics and serves as director of studies for The Public Interest Fellowship. From 2019 to 2021, he served as the director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, executive secretary of the department’s Commission on Unalienable Rights, and senior advisor to the secretary of state. Berkowitz is a member of the American Academy of Sciences and Letters and a 2017 recipient of the Bradley Prize. He is author of Constitutional Conservatism: Liberty, Self-Government, and Political Moderation; Israel and the Struggle over the International Laws of War; Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism; and Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist. In addition, Berkowitz is the editor of seven collections of essays on political ideas and institutions and has written hundreds of articles, essays, and reviews on a range of subjects for a variety of publications.
Eric Wakin is the Deputy Director of the Hoover Institution and the Everett and Jane Hauck Director of its Library & Archives.
