America’s Decline:
The Education of a Conservative

Revilo P. Oliver
America’s Decline: The Education of a Conservative
Uckfield, Sussex, England: Historical Review Press, 2006
468 pages
paperback: $25

Revilo P. Oliver, Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois for 32 years, was a scholar of international distinction who wrote articles for some of the most prestigious academic publications in Europe and the United States. America’s Decline: The Education of a Conservative is a collection of articles and reviews chronicling an intellectual and political journey beginning with the mainstream conservative movement after the end of the Second World War, progressing through the John Birch Society and other right wing groups, and concluding with the open avowal of White Nationalism. At each step of his education, Professor Oliver discovered that the causes of America’s decline were deeper than he had previously suspected and that the whole spectrum of conservative organizations and publications had been subverted and were actively engaged in further subversion. America’s Decline is not merely the story of one man’s intellectual odyssey, for everyone who reads this book will become one of Professor Oliver’s fellow travelers.

CONTENTS

Part I
America after the Holy War

Part II
Articles and Reviews, 1955-1959

Part III
The Politician

Part IV
Articles and Reviews, 1959-1966

Part V
The Great Deceit

Part VI
Aftermath

Appendix I
The Political Writings of Revilo P. Oliver, 1936-1966

Appendix II
Which Way, Western Man?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Revilo Pendleton Oliver (1908-1994), Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois, was a man of stunning erudition: he read eleven languages, including Sanskrit, and for more than half a century wrote scholarly articles in four languages for leading academic publications in the United States and Europe. Born in Texas, Revilo Oliver received his undergraduate degree at Pomona College and his doctorate at the University of Illinois under William Abbot Oldfather. His first book was The Little Clay Cart, an annotated translation of the Sanskrit Mrcchakatika, published by the University of Illinois in 1938.

During World War II, he worked in a highly secret cryptographic agency of the War Department in Washington, DC, and was cited for outstanding service to his country. After his work for the War Department, Dr. Oliver was awarded a Guggenheim Post-Service Fellowship, and during the years 1953 and 1954 he traveled to Italy on a Fulbright Research Fellowship to study Italian Renaissance manuscripts.

In 1954, alarmed by the ongoing political subversion of the United States, Professor Oliver threw himself into conservative activism. He participated in the creation of National Review magazine; he was one of the founders of the John Birch Society; he made numerous speeches before patriotic groups; he wrote hundreds of articles and reviews. Eventually, his disillusion with the conservative movement led him to become an avowed racial nationalist.