Family Values

Cooper's book leaves us with a bleakly realistic account of the (often Christian) rightwing patriarchal forces whose resoundingly angry response to feminist and pro-welfare activism has sought to stifle the impact of the women's movement from the 1960s onwards, especially in regard to economic, racial and reproductive freedoms. One might assume that similar ideas are at work in the Trump administration today. Under the weight of such antagonism the tenacity of feminism is nothing short of miraculous, and Cooper's sombre analysis serves to remind the pro-feminist left and the women's movement of how few in number we are, and have been. -openDemocracy Magisterial...[Cooper] brilliantly shows how enmeshed we are, as political and economic agents, into the family form, and how necessary this is to the reproduction of neoliberal capitalism. -Dissent In an academic world flush with and made into silos by specialized topics, research articles, and books, Melinda Cooper's interdisciplinary integration is a most welcome map of the historical and contemporary forces that created political alliances between neoliberalism and neoconservatism. This book promises to be a classic study of the role that the family played in fomenting alliances between neoconservatives and neoliberals. Many academic disciplines beyond cultural studies may find particular chapters helpful in the classroom as well. -Lateral If there's one lesson to be drawn from Melinda Cooper's masterful new study of capitalism and the American right, it's that this supposed opposition between neoliberalism and social conservatism is a caricature... The two movements were hardly mere allies of convenience, let alone mortal enemies. On the contrary, Family Values reveals how their close conceptual and practical collaboration helped to build the foundations of the contemporary social world. -Jacobin