The Essential Neoconservative Reader captures the drama and historical importance of neoconservatism's rise from 1965 to the present, by collecting influential essays by its most noted figures - among them Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Nathan Glazer, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and James Q. Wilson. The word neoconservative was first used as a term of derision for disgruntled ex-liberals of the 1960s. Perhaps because of this, there has never been a central credo or organization unifying neoconservatism as a movement. With this collection, however, neoconservatism is cast in a new light, portrayed as a comprehensive outlook on economics, politics, society, and culture linked by common principles and a distinctive vision.