In 1969, Kevin Phillips was a young political strategist for the Republican Party and a newly published author. His book, The Emerging Republican Majority, correctly predicted an era of growing Republican electoral strength as people and industry moved from the old industrial states of the North to the South and West, an area still known in politics by his label, the “Sunbelt.”
A political analyst, historian and author of 13 books Mr. Phillips’ first gained prominence as the chief political strategist for Richard Nixon during the 1968 election. In 1969, he published The Emerging Republican Majority, which forecasted a major shift to the right in electoral politics – a prediction that has been remarkably accurate. Over 20 years, he has contributed commentary to CBS News, National Public Radio, and The Los Angeles Times.
His books have covered the range of history, politics and economics. In 1990, The Politics of Rich and Poor, a critique of Reagan-Bush economics, rose to number two on the New York Times bestseller list; in 1999, Phillips stepped back from politics to write a history of three Anglo-American civil wars, The Cousins’ Wars; his 2002 Wealth and Democracy chronicled the history of America’s wealthiest families and their effect on public policy from 1780s to 1991, arguing that America has entered a new gilded age; in 2003, he produced a biography, William McKinley; then, in 2004, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush rose to number two on the New York Times bestseller list. And in 2006, American Theocracy explored the corrosive influence of oil, fundamentalist religion and debt on American democracy.
