In this history of the "other Sixties," Gregory L. Schneider traces the influence of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative political group that locked horns with the New Left and spawned many of the major players in the contemporary conservative movement, from the Goldwater campaign in 1964 to Reagan's revolution in the 1980s.

Cadres for Conservatism reveals how young political conservatives, unlike their leftist counterparts, avoided fracture in the wake of the Sixties. Rather, YAF continued to serve as a seedbed for future conservative leaders, many of whom drew on the contacts and (counter-)activism of their youth to consolidate conservative power.

Schneider's talent for trenchant archival research is supplemented by a plethora of detailed interviews with virtually every past national chairman and executive director of the YAF, as well as important sponsors such as William F. Buckley, William Rusher, and M. Stanton Evans.