The title of Edward Miller’s “Nut Country,’’ a history of the growth and evolution of the Republican party in Dallas through the 1950s and ’60s, comes from something President John F. Kennedy said to his wife in a Fort Worth hotel room on Nov. 22, 1963.

That morning’s Dallas Morning News had included a full-page ad headlined, “Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas,’’ which went on to accuse the president of being soft on Communism. As the first lady dressed, “donning a new pink Chanel dress,’’ said Miller, “Kennedy turned to his wife and said, ‘We’re heading into nut country today.’ ’’

Although the book doesn’t center on what happened later that day, the Kennedy assassination played a big role in Miller’s adolescence. As a high school student in Weymouth, Miller and his best friend “were mesmerized by JFK’s assassination,’’ he said. “We bought the books; we went to the conventions; we traveled to Dallas. We were these nerdy guys out to solve the Kennedy assassination on our February school break.’’

Years later, as a doctoral student at Boston College, Miller chose to focus on Dallas in the period shortly after World War II, a time and place of great importance in American conservative politics. “Dallas was definitely ahead of its time,’’ Miller said, citing the growth of oil and banking in attracting an influx of well-educated outsiders interested in the works of libertarian intellectuals. These new ideas, blended with the city’s southern establishment roots, eventually produced a new kind of Republican.

It’s a style that has come to dominate the party. “The language that I see in the current political environment — apocalyptic language, conspiracy theory, absolutist rhetoric — mirrors what you see’’ in that period in Dallas, said Miller, who now teaches at Northeastern.

Miller will read from “Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy’’ at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Hingham Public Library, 66 Leavitt St., Hingham.

Kate Tuttle, a writer and editor, can be reached at kate.tuttle@gmail.com.