David T. Courtwright's book has two stated purposes. The first is to describe “the origins, politics, personalities, and outcome of the long national struggle over morality commonly called “the culture wars” or “the Culture War,” which for the book's purposes begins in the late 1960s (p. 3). The second goal is to explain why social conservatives have lost that war.

No Right Turn is divided into three sections, which, unfortunately, are not nearly as integrated as they should be, although each works nicely standing alone. The first section is the opening chapter, “How to Think about the Cultural Revolution,” which is a beautiful little essay on conceptualizing moral and economic temperaments. Building on the work of Robert Greven, who described Protestants in terms of Evangelicals, Moderates, and Genteels, Courtwright argues convincingly that Catholicism, Judaism, and Protestantism can be divided into three categories that transcend denominational lines. Those at one end are likely to believe in “free will, sin, punishment, and absolutely moral standards grounded in sacred scriptures,” with the patriarchal family forming the basic unit of society (p. 10). Those at the other are more likely to view moral issues in terms of relativism and determinism, where evil still exists but tends to be found in oppressive systems that privilege some groups over others.

Courtwright then lays out four economic temperaments evident since the New Deal, from those who believe the markets should be left to themselves to those who believe in heavy intervention and redistribution, noting that neither religious temperament nor denomination has been a good predictor of economic temperament, being trumped by one's race and class.

In writing aimed at a popular audience, the chapters that follow take the reader through the administrations of John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush, exploring the key moral debates confronted by each president. This book does not attempt to retell the stories so nicely handled by Lisa McGirr in Suburban Warriors (2001) and Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall in Chain Reaction (1991) as to how various demographic groups came to hold the beliefs they did; instead, it takes all of that as given and describes how the issues played out at the national level. In this regard, the book is both nuanced and frustrating—nuanced in the sense that Courtwight, building on his introduction, refuses to fall into the trap of treating various denominations as coherent belief systems, because, again, one can be of any faith and still fall anywhere along the moral belief spectrum. This is also frustrating, of course, because we do not get a good sense of who exactly believed what and when, so that when he describes the spread of the Republican Party into the South by the 1980s, the most he tells the reader is that “[w]herever white folks and barbeque were found, so were Republicans” (p. 168).

It would have been nice to have more social science in the chapters themselves, as this would have provided some helpful analytical heft to the work. That being said, in exchange, readers are given a refreshing account of how moral conservatives viewed the society around them, seeing not simply what they were against but also what they were for. In this regard, the book makes a nice contribution to the literature.

The final two chapters form the third section, which seeks to answer the question of why America's social conservatives have met with so little success. The simple answer is that very few presidents were socially conservative themselves, and there was no electoral incentive for them to pursue a socially conservative agenda. Rather than leave it at that, Courtwright develops a nice inquiry into the intersections of morality, race, consumerism, and the media, noting efficiently that conservatism and race have found a synergy in the area of punishment and suppression of crime—since getting criminals off the streets has often also been understood as getting black men off the streets. He contrasts this with other causes near and dear to social conservatives, such as patriarchy and traditional two-parent family structures, religion in schools, public morality, and keeping sex and violence off of television and out of movies. In all of these areas, social conservatives have generally failed in the face of consumerism and the entertainment industry.

Since it was written for a popular audience, No Right Turn is a surprisingly enjoyable read. If you are looking for a crisply written history of American social politics at the national level, this is a useful book. I do regret that the author was too afraid to embrace his heritage as a political scientist, as I believe he could have done so and still kept the book accessible to a wider audience. However, each chapter is allowed to stand alone, which may be helpful for syllabi or for professors seeking to spice up their lectures with some interesting tidbits. Courtwright does us all a service by covering a very interesting topic in American social history.