Abstract
Critics of Tom Clancy’s fiction tend to reject Clancy’s work as evidence of a black-and-white “conservative” agenda. This chapter argues that such a misreading obfuscates the complex legacy of liberalism in the United States. Placing Clancy in dialogue with the ascendance of neoconservatism (a hybrid of traditionally liberal and conservative values), this chapter argues that Clancy’s unsettled prose does not reflect a cleanly bifurcated society. Rather, it reflects a confused liberal imagination.
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Blouin, M.J. (2018). Tom Clancy and the Liberal Family Tree. In: Mass-Market Fiction and the Crisis of American Liberalism, 1972–2017. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89387-7_5
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