"The New American Consciousness"

Author's Note: this is a fictitious book existing only in the Napoleon's Legacy Universe alternate history timeline. However, it is based around a real work of Goldwater's, also published in 1960, titled The Conscience of a Conservative, which had a similar boosting effect on Goldwater's career and on American Conservativism in real life.

The New American Consciousness is a book written by American Conservative businessman and politician Barry Goldwater. The work began circulating - in excerpts and in its entirity - around 1958, but was not published until 1960: just in time to coincide with the political fallout from recent U.S. Military disasters in Alaska.

A harsh critique on the policies and political modus operandi of the New Deal Coalition, the changing socio-political climate and government of the United States and on the persons of prominent 'New Deal' heroes such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Kennedies and, to a lesser extent, Charlotte Clariston, the book caused a shift in American political discourse. It did not, however, as many (but not Mr. Goldwater himself) had hoped, cause significant damage to the New Deal Coalition's uncontestable grip on the modern United States. Instead, it propelled its author - somewhat reluctantly - into a position of leadership over the NDC's established opposition, i.e. American Conservative parties and politicians. Mr. Goldwater's vocal criticism of the current regime is nationally - if not globally - famous, but the Conservative Coalition he now leads has made little actual progress electorally and continues in a state largely of impotence against the New Deal Coalition's control of the American government and the voting blocs.

Contents
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To Make a People Free
Goldwater's work is often contrasted with or "pitted against" the slightly older To Make a People Free, a book - partially an autobiography and partially a political discourse or manifesto - largely authored by Franklin D. Roosevelt with later input and revisions from Charlotte J. Clariston, published in 1957 (with both of them being listed equally as authors). It explores the lives of both Roosevelt and Clariston for the purpose of explaining how the two most prominent New Dealers developed their politics and outlook, offers defenses of New Deal policies and extolls the virtues of the modern "post-Roosevelt" America. Despite the popularity of Goldwater's own book, it has never managed to achieve the mass popularity or sales of Roosevelt/Clariston's work, although the two are generally viewed as equals in a point, counter-point relationship. As John F. Kennedy put it at an interview during the Clariston-Kennedy bid for the Presidency: "There is by now a copy of To Make a People Free in every American home, on every bookstore's shelves and in every Library card catalogue across this Nation. Mr. Goldwater [with the respect to his own book], I believe, can only claim the latter."

In response to The New American Consciousness, President Clariston has revised and delayed the publication of To Make a People Free's sequal / second volume, To Preserve a Nation. This as yet unpublished work - authored solely by her - is much shorter than its predecessor, dealing largely with criticisms that have arisen since the beginning of her Presidency (and to a lesser extent, since the Joseph P. Kennedy Administration). It also serves to correct many of the allegations and characterizations of her own personal life within ''The New American Consciousness. At the time when he was writing his book, Goldwater had not read To Make a People Free'' - a fact which Charlotte's second work points out and stresses in its opening chapter (which is a direct, first-person 'reply' on her part to Goldwater).

Roosevelt and Clariston's book is available in both English- as well as French-language editions, with the latter being written in parallel by Charlotte - who is a fluent speaker - rather than a simple translation. Since its original publication, a version in Spanish - translated from the French edition, since the language is more closely related than English - has also become available.