Jeff Roche, "The Conservative Frontier: Texas and the Origins of the New Right" (U Texas Press, 2025)
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Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Poe. I'm the editor of the NewBooks Network. And if you're listening to the NewBooks Network, I imagine you like to read. And I'm wondering if you have a goal to read more this year. How about a goal to read more of what you love and less of what you don't? The Proofread podcast is here to help. Hosted by Casey and Tyler, two English professors and avid readers with busy lives, Proofread helps you decide what books are worth spending your precious time on and what books aren't. They feature 15-minute episodes that give you everything you need to know about a book to decide if you should read it or skip it. You'll get a brief synopsis, fun and witty commentary, no spoilers,
and no sponsored reviews. It's just what Casey and Tyler think. Life's too short to read a bad book. So subscribe to the Proofread podcast today. And by the way, there's a new season coming. Thanks very much. Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges. Basically, One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience.
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Hello, and welcome back to New Books in the American West, a channel on the New Books Network of Podcasts. I'm Steve Hausman. I'm an assistant professor of environmental history at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. And I am your host for today's interview. And for this episode, I'm speaking with Jeff Roche. Dr. Roche is a professor of history at the College of Wooster in Ohio, and we'll be discussing his new book, The Conservative Frontier, Texas and the Origins of the New Right, which came out just recently with University of Texas Press earlier this year in 2025. Welcome to the New Books Network, Jeff. Good to have you here today.
Well, thanks for having me, Steve.
Why don't we start as we always like to do on this podcast by just hearing a little bit about who you are and how you got interested in history. So what's your background and what's the path that you took to becoming a professional historian?
A fairly long and twisted path to get to the professional historian part. Uh, I, I had a pretty long path through undergraduate. I took six years off in the middle and started bartending and, um, liked it, liked it more than college. Um, and I got back into college after, like I said, about a six year period. And that was when I was living in Atlanta and I went to Georgia state. And, uh, after, like I said, a couple of years, I started West Texas state. I went to the same Houston state for a year. And, uh, but I graduated from Georgia state. I immediately went into the MA program. I was the first person in my family to go to college alone, sort of graduate from college, and didn't really know quite how anything worked.
So I just thought, well, now I get an MA, and then I go get a PhD after that. So once I got on the MA program, I knew I wanted to be a historian. I knew I wanted to be a history professor.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–9:53
2
Who is Jeff Roche and what inspired his study of West Texas conservatism?
9:53–49:08
3
What makes the Texas Panhandle's landscape and settlement unique?
49:08–1:03:43
4
How did Charles Goodnight and cattle ranching shape early West Texas politics?
1:03:43–1:18:56