You know the one. Spock sports a goatee, and the Enterprise crew consists of a bunch of bad guys. (I’m sure John Hood knows the episode title.)

Surely Kevin Mattson’s 2008 book, Rebels All! A Short History of the Conservative Mind in Postwar America, crossed over from that alternate universe.

In Mattson’s version of history, conservatives are the radicals of American society and have been since at least the 1960s. OK.

To Mattson’s credit, he’s not a Michael Moore type who’s looking to throw bombs at conservatives every few words. Though his book is short ? about 140 pages ? Mattson appears interested in approaching his subject with scholarly discipline.

Still, anyone looking for a better take on the conservative movement’s history might want to seek out books by George Nash, Alfred Regnery, or Lee Edwards instead.