What goes by the description of "conservatism" these days is a far cry from its past incarnations. Forget the legacy of moderate conservatism promoted by Dwight Eisenhower. Today's conservatism, according to Robert Brent Toplin, has taken a decidedly radical turn.

Toplin offers an intriguing critique of this fast-growing movement that resembles religious fundamentalism - a rigid true believer's mindset that dismisses opposing views and leaves almost no room for dialogue. Toplin observes that the right's orthodox approach represents a significant rejection of the more open-minded and practical outlook that characterized both liberal and conservative politics in earlier years.

Toplin considers three major subgroups within radical conservatism: stealth libertarians, who espouse free markets and small government, culture warriors, who crusade for morality and "values," and hawkish nationalists, who favor military solutions in foreign affairs. He points out that, whatever their differences, these groups manage to unite behind a common loathing. Conservatives demonize liberals, blaming them for most everything they dislike in American life. But, as Toplin shows, their view of "liberals" has little to do with reality, for it treats everyone from the center to the far-left as a liberal and equates liberal ideas with extremism.

When Americans talk about radical conservatism, they usually think of strident commentators on radio and television such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter. Toplin offers a much broader picture of the radical, fundamentalist mentality. He shows that a religious-like approach to political ideas can also be found in the thinking of prominent scholars, journalists, and public officials such as Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol, Allan Bloom, George Will, Fred Barnes, William J. Bennett, and Ronald Reagan. Toplin finds political fundamentalism at work, too, in media outlets like the Fox News Network and the "Wall Street Journal" and at think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute.

Offering a roadmap of the radical right's emergence over the past half century, Toplin reveals how enthusiasm for a conservative "faith" helped to erect a bully pulpit in an increasingly powerful political church.

History has been fodder for cinema from the silent era to the blockbuster present, a fact that has seldom pleased historians themselves. As pundits increasingly ponder "how Hollywood fails history," Robert Toplin counters with a provocative alternative approach to this enduring debate over the portrayal of history in film.

Toplin focuses on movies released over the past sixteen years--during which twelve historical films won the Oscar for Best Picture--and argues that critics often fail to recognize the unique ways that fictional films communicate important ideas about the past. A trenchant extension of his highly regarded "History by Hollywood," Toplin's new work establishes commonsense ground rules for improving critical analysis in this area. Citing films like "Gladiator" and "Braveheart," "Gandhi" and "Nixon," he underscores the pressures placed on filmmakers to simplify and alter historical fact to conform to the demands of an extraordinarily expensive mass medium.

Toplin demonstrates how a historical epic like Glory may contain "creative adjustments" that worry historians but shows how its distortions communicate broader and deeper truths about the Civil War experiences of African Americans--just as "Saving Private Ryan" presented little factual detail about World War II and yet effectively conveyed the experience of combat. He also shows how other films--such as "Mississippi Burning," "Amistad," and "The Hurricane"--contain so many elements of fictional excess and oversimplification that they deserve the criticism they receive.

Toplin deliberately steers a middle course between tradition-minded critics who castigate films for artistic liberties and cinema scholars wedded to pure aesthetics. He also draws upon his own experiences in film production and takes direct aim at recent writing about film dominated by jargonistic theory and empty rhetoric. He urges film studies scholars to move beyond their preoccupation with formal aesthetics and recognize that, in historical films, content does matter.

In engaging prose that will appeal to any moviegoer, "Reel History" helps build bridges between defenders and detractors of history-by-Hollywood and enlarges our understanding of film as a communicator of truths about the human condition.

Challenging audiences and leaving critics in disarray, the films of Oliver Stone have compelled viewers to reexamine many of their most revered beliefs about America's past. Like no other filmmaker, Stone has left an indelible mark on public opinion and political life, even as he has generated enormous controversy and debate among those who take issue with his dramatic use of history.

This book brings Stone face-to-face with some of his most thoughtful critics and supporters and allows Stone himself ample room to respond to their views. Featuring such luminaries as David Halberstam, Stephen Ambrose, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Walter Lafeber, and Robert Rosenstone, these writers critique Stone's most contested films to show how they may distort, amplify, or transcend the historical realities they appear to depict.

These essays--on "Salvador," "Platoon," "Wall Street," "Born on the Fourth of July," "The Doors," "JFK," "Heaven and Earth," "Natural Born Killers," and "Nixon"--enlarge our understanding of Stone's films, while also giving us a fuller appreciation of the filmmaker as artist and intellectual. They reveal how Stone's experience in Vietnam colors his views of American government and corporate culture and suggest new ways of looking at the complex tensions between art and history that shape Stone's films.

In response, Stone offers an articulate and passionate defense of his artistic vision. Disavowing once and for all the mantle of "cinematic historian," Stone declares himself first and foremost a storyteller, a dramatist and mythmaker who deliberately refashions historical facts in pursuit of higher truths. The undeniable centerpiece of this artistic manifesto is Stone's fascinating commentary on the making and meanings of JFK, the film that reopened a case that many thought finally closed.

A provocative and timely reexamination of a great American artist, Oliver Stone's USA will also reignite public debate over the relationship between history and art as well as the artist's responsibility to his audience.