Invisible Hands

Reviews / Votes

"Here is the true story of the businessmen's crusade: how organized money built a movement, found its voice, honed its strategies, and, after years of struggle, returned in triumph...Kim Phillips-Fein's archival work is nothing short of phenomenal." -- Thomas Frank, author of Rendezvous with Oblivion "Kim Phillips-Fein's Invisible Hands persuasively shows how anti-New Deal business interests helped create a new political conservatism after 1945. It is essential reading on the history of contemporary American politics, and especially on the origins of Ronald Reagan's ascendancy." -- Sean Wilentz, Princeton University, author of The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 "A fascinating account of how important wealthy donors were to the rise and success of conservatism...While many historians have focused on the role of ideas, activists, and politicians, this work takes us to the people who put their money where their mouths were." -- Huffington Post "With ferocious archival spadework and a sharply honed critical intelligence, this study shifts the agenda of history-writing about American conservatism and marks a new stage in its maturity. A very important book." -- Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland "Invisible Hands is a brilliant, lucid, meticulously researched account of the politics of business conservatism. Kim Phillips-Fein's work is pathbreaking. For anyone who wants to understand the triumph of the conservative order during the past quarter century, Invisible Hands is a must read." -- Steve Fraser, author of Wall Street: America's Dream Palace "[An] incisive study...Combining piquant profiles of corporate firebrands with a trenchant historical analysis that puts economic conflict at the heart of political change, Phillips-Fein makes an important contribution to our understanding of American conservatism." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The riveting story of how economic conservatism became one of the leading strands in American political thought...Engaging history from a talented new scholarly voice." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)