ten books that shaped america's conservative renaissance

America’s Conservative Renaissance 1

TEN BOOKS THATSHAPED AMERICA’S

CONSERVATIVERENAISSANCE

BY JEFFREY O. NELSON

2 Ten Books


TEN BOOKS THATSHAPED AMERICA’S

CONSERVATIVERENAISSANCE

INTERCOLLEGIATE STUDIES INSTITUTE

BY

JEFFREY O. NELSON

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TEN BOOKS THATSHAPED AMERICA’SCONSERVATIVE

RENAISSANCE

vative thought in the West, the long drama oflived experience as glimpsed by poets and novel-ists, social philosophers and practical statesmen.But these words could also be applied to a moreparticular conservative experience, that of post-

he above words were written, of course, withreference to the great inheritance of conser-

If a conservative order is indeed to return, weought to know the tradition which is attached to it,so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to berestored, still we ought to understand conservativeideas so that we may rake from the ashes whatscorched fragments of civilization escape the con-flagration of unchecked will and appetite.

—Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind

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World War II America. If we are to know andrebuild a conservative civil social order in thiscountry, then we need to “rake from the ashes”of recent American history the books thatinfluenced a generation of conservative scholarsand public figures, books whose message reso-nated with much of the American populace andresulted in astonishing political triumphs.

At the time these books were publishedthere was no conservative movement, only abelief among a disparate group of thinkers thatconservative ideas had something to say to asociety sated with liberalism. As Frederick D.Wilhelmsen put it, the only thing conservativeshad was their vision. Today, conservatism hasbecome so much a part of American life that it isdifficult to comprehend what an astonishingachievement it was to lay the foundations of amovement that was, as the publisher HenryRegnery once remarked, not only an “opposingforce to liberalism, but a vital force in its ownright.” With all the opportunities and outletsnow available to conservatives it is easy for us to


forget that the movement which arose at thecentury’s midpoint came after a long reign ofdoctrinaire liberalism, and was greeted, accordingto Regnery, almost as an escape from bondage.

William Bennett observed that one of theprimary concerns of conservatives should be tore-articulate a philosophical case for the kind ofconservative government and society we advocateand oppose it to the one advanced by activistliberals. The first step in this effort must be toreacquaint ourselves with the tradition—thebooks, the figures, and the ideas—that enlivenedconservatism, that made it “a fact and a force” onthe American political and social landscape.

George H. Nash’s The Conservative Intellec-tual Movement in America Since 1945 is theauthoritative study on conservatism’s intellectualrenaissance. In it, Nash outlines an Americanconservative movement that was forged, at timesuneasily, from three intellectual groups: libertar-ians, anti-Communists, and traditionalists. Interms of organization, it seems sensible toconsider each group in light of the literature it

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produced, for these are the works that gave birthto the political movement with which we are allfamiliar.

Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, conserva-tives of all stripes have denounced the growth ofthe American welfare state. After World War IIin particular, many conservatives were alarmed atthe decrease of economic freedom at home andthe rise of collectivism overseas. The growth ofthe omnipotent state was leading to a degree ofcultural deterioration that alarmed manythoughtful people.

It was the so-called “libertarians” whoresponded first to the unwelcome changes thatwere wrought by this new American “superstate.”The libertarians were attracted to the economicand political teachings of classical, nineteenth-century individualists. The principles libertariansbelieved should guide government were freemarkets, private property, individualism, andlimited government, in short, laissez-faire. The1930s, the decade of the New Deal, had been


uncongenial years for devotees of economic andpersonal liberty, and it wasn’t until after the warthat these libertarian ideas gained a sympathetichearing.

As has been suggested by a number ofscholars, post-war libertarians were buttressedtheoretically and philosophically from theirassociation with members of the Austrian Schoolof economics. Since the late-nineteenth century,economists associated with the Austrian Schoolhave been forceful critics of allvariants of anti-capitalism andcollectivism. The most famous ofthese Austrian economists isFriedrich von Hayek, whose 1944 book The Roadto Serfdom was central to the early definition ofthe conservative movement. It was Hayek’scontention that “[a]lthough we had been warnedby some of the greatest political thinkers of thenineteenth century, by Tocqueville and LordActon, that socialism means slavery, we havesteadily moved in the direction of socialism.” Thepurpose of his book was to explain “why and how

The Road toSerfdom

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certain kinds of economic controls tend toparalyze the driving forces of a free society.”Economist Harry C. Veryser has observed thatthe unique feature of this book “was that at thevery time governments and economies werecentralizing, Hayek was arguing that increasedgovernment planning and control of the economywould by its very nature create the conditionsthat would lead to the kind of totalitarianismthat shocked the world in Germany, Italy, andRussia.” For Hayek, the socialists, under theguise of equality, were setting us back on theroad to serfdom—that is, back to a condition ofpolitical and economic servitude and away fromthe ideal of a free society. Hayek’s book broughthim immediate attention, as it was condensed inReader’s Digest and selected as a Book-of-the-Month Club title.

Another central libertarian figure of thepost-war era was Hayek’s teacher, Ludwig von

Mises. His book Socialism, an-other work that considerablyinfluenced early conservative

Socialism


thinking, powerfully challenged socialist econom-ics as being not only inherently flawed becausethey are unable to allocate scarce resourcesefficiently, but contrary to the very nature of theindividual as well. Collectivist economics doesnot recognize the central role played by theentrepreneur in ordinary economic and socialorganization. For Mises, socialism was far frombeing a humane alternative to the free market.Rather, at bottom, it was contrary to humannature itself. By denying the human aspect—therole each individual plays in communicating vitaleconomic information—socialism, according toMises, was doomed to fail.

One of the great classical liberal journalswas the Freeman, founded by AlbertJay Nock. An incisive author whodeserves to be studied more oftentoday, Nock was read by many ofthe key intellectual figures of theburgeoning conservative movement, profoundlyinfluencing the likes of William F. Buckley, Jr.,Russell Kirk, and Robert Nisbet. Nock’s Memoirs

Memoirs of aSuperfluousMan

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of a Superfluous Man, passionately read as it wasby most post-war conservatives, left its mark onthe shape the movement was to take. Memoirs ofa Superfluous Man is no confessional autobiogra-phy, but rather “an autobiography of a mind,” anextended musing on Nock’s life and stronglyanti-statist prejudices. According to Nock, thestate is “our enemy,” aggressively interfering withthe economic and social life of its citizens andarrogantly assuming the right to direct humanaffairs. He believed that “custom and agreement,”rather than “conquest and confiscation,” were tobe the means by which government could bechanged. In an influential essay entitled “Isaiah’sJob,” Nock invoked the biblical prophet tosuggest that societies dedicated to freedom andindividualism must be kept alive by a “remnant,”by those people, as Charles Hamilton put it,“who were capable of transcending mass culture,materialism, and political opportunism in orderto seek a more humane life.”

Overall, the anti-statist, individualisticvision promoted by the libertarians was, and


remains today, central to the American conserva-tive movement.

Anti-communism, especially opposition toSoviet imperialism, was another powerful forceaffecting the development ofAmerican conservatism after 1945.A book that unquestionably shapedresurgent conservatism is Whittaker Chambers’classic Witness, perhaps the most influential bookproduced by the anti-Communist group ofconservatives. The gripping account of Cham-bers’ days as a Communist agent, and then lateras a conservative or, as he called himself, a“counterrevolutionary,” has inspired generationsof conservatives. Chambers played the key role inexposing Alger Hiss, a former high-ranking StateDepartment official, as a Soviet spy in 1948.Chambers’ Witness is as prescient and movingtoday as when it was first published in 1952. In ahaunting tone, Chambers describes the nature ofthe crisis which has confronted society in thepost-war era. “Few men,” he wrote, “are so dull

Witness

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that they do not know that the crisis exists andthat it threatens their lives at every point. It ispopular to call it a social crisis. It is in fact a totalcrisis—religious, moral, intellectual, social,political, economic. It is popular to call it a crisisof the Western World. It is in fact a crisis of thewhole world. Communism...is itself a symptomand an irritant of that crisis.” For Chambers, thecrisis was embodied in his struggle with Hiss, astruggle that was at bottom a conflict between“the two irreconcilable faiths of our time—Communism and Freedom.” Ultimately, forChambers, “the crisis of the Western world existsto the degree it is indifferent to God. It exists tothe degree in which the Western world actuallyshares Communism’s materialist vision, is sodazzled by the logic of the materialist interpreta-tion of history, politics, and economics, that itfails to grasp that, for it, the only possible answerto the Communist challenge: Faith in God orFaith in Man? is the challenge: Faith in God.”

Another important anti-Communist figureof the burgeoning conservative movement was


Frank Meyer. For two reasons, Meyer’s classicwork In Defense of Freedom decisively influencedthe direction of the post-war conservative move-ment. First, it represented an ex-Communist’sviews on the nature of communism; and second,it called for a “fusion” betweenlibertarians, with their emphasis onfreedom as the end of society, andtraditionalist conservatives, who argued thatorder and virtue were the ultimate social ends.Indeed, as George H. Nash pointed out, Meyer’sfusionist project represented a critical point inthe history of the conservative movement, for ittested the “intellectual legitimacy of the coalitionthat had developed in the mid-1950s.” Through-out In Defense of Freedom, Meyer posited withgreat skill and vigor that “the freedom of theperson” was “the central and primary end ofpolitical society.” Furthermore, he argued thatthere was an “integral relationship betweenfreedom as a political end and the basic beliefs ofcontemporary conservatism.” Significantly,Meyer’s “fusionism” became the guiding philoso-

In Defense ofFreedom

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phy of the newly established conservative weeklymagazine, National Review.

The greatest English conservative theoristof the twentieth-century, Michael Oakeshott,

once remarked that “[t]heproject of finding a short cut toheaven is as old as the humanrace.” The philosopher ofhistory Eric Voegelin saw

Communism as the most recent of man’s manyattempts to forge such a shortcut. In his influen-tial book The New Science of Politics, a book thatcontributed much to a reinvigorated conserva-tism, Voegelin argued that one of the definingmarks of modernity was the increasingly popularview that politics was essentially about thepursuit of secular salvation. Transcendent objec-tives and standards, he asserted, no longer defineand guide political existence. Voegelin traced aconnection between an ancient heresy, gnosti-cism, and modern ideologies that claim to havethe key to history’s laws and promise happiness,peace, and fulfillment on this side of eternity.

The NewScience ofPolitics


While the struggle against communism perse may be over, both the sense that we areinvolved in a great civilizational struggle and the“gnostic” impulse that drives men to seek heavenhere on earth certainly remains—and continuesto be a force against which conservatism isdefined.

The search to recover society’s “moral norms”was conducted principally by the “traditionalist”wing of the post-war American conservativemovement. Like the libertarians, traditionalistswere trying to make sense of the nightmare thatwas World War II. They believed that conserva-tives should be custodians of the cultural past.They were critical of mass culture and of moralrelativism. But they understood that to maintaina critical stance wasn’t enough. Traditionalistsrealized that before one can defend or refine atradition, one must define one. To find and toarticulate a genuine conservative tradition was atask that had been unmet in the years immedi-ately following the war. This was the challenge

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that prominent traditionalists like Russell Kirk,Richard Weaver, and Robert Nisbet accepted.

The most eminent member of this branchof the movement is Russell Kirk.His book The Conservative Mind isperhaps the seminal work of the

conservative movement. In it, Kirk set out toprove that there is no conservative blueprint or“system”—that is, no conservative ideology. Forhim, conservatism is a disposition, a way of livingand viewing life. He outlined six “canons ofconservatism,” however, to suggest a coherentphilosophical vision. But in the realm of politicalgovernance, Kirk believed that prudence, aidedby right reason, is one’s surest guide, and thatpolitics, as Burke had taught, was “the art of thepossible.” To support this view, Kirk traced animpressive intellectual genealogy of Americansand Britons that included Edmund Burke, JohnAdams, John Randolph, James Fenimore Cooper,Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and T.S. Eliot. In contrast to mainstream academicthought, Kirk persuasively demonstrated that

The Conser-vative Mind


conservatism has in fact been central to theAmerican experience, and in doing so gaveAmerican conservatism, according to HenryRegnery, its “needed unifying concept.” “Inessence,” Kirk wrote, “the body of belief that wecall ‘conservatism’ is an affirmation of normalityin the concerns of society. There exist standardsto which we may repair; man is not perfectible,but he may achieve a tolerable degree of order,justice, and freedom....” To uphold these normsand standards is a concern of every conservative.Kirk asserted that post-war conservatives wereconcerned foremost with “the regeneration ofspirit and character—with the problem of theinner order of the soul, the restoration of theethical understanding and the religious sanctionupon which any life worth living is founded.”This, for Kirk, is “conservatism at its highest.”

Another prominent and influential tradi-tionalist conservative was Richard Weaver. Hisbook Ideas Have Consequences, like Kirk’s TheConservative Mind, contributed significantly tothe philosophical coherence of contemporary

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conservatism. Frank Meyer went so far as to saythat “the publication of Ideas Have Consequencescan well be considered the fons et origo of thecontemporary American conservative movement.”For Meyer, what was adumbrated in the pages of

Weaver’s book was “the inform-ing principle” of the burgeoningconservative movement: “the

unity of tradition and liberty.” Weaver began hisbook by flatly stating, “This is another bookabout the dissolution of the West.” He centeredhis argument around the observation that thebest representation of the fundamental change inman’s view of reality was the nominalist contro-versy of the fourteenth century. The nominalistdispute centered on the denial of the existence ofuniversals, and for Weaver, it led directly tocultural deterioration and to the contemporaryWest’s primary malady: moral relativism. Weaverinsisted that the “[d]enial of everything tran-scending experience means inevitably...the denialof truth. With the denial of objective truth thereis no escape from the relativism of ‘man is the

Ideas HaveConsequences


measure of all things.’”That sentiment especially was shared by the

conservative sociologist Robert Nisbet, whosebook The Quest For Community ranks highamong the foundational works of post-warAmerican conservatism. In it,Nisbet argued that the emergenceof the “centralized territorial State”in the wake of the Middle Ages decisivelyimpacted Western social organization. Nisbet wasparticularly sensitive to the rise of the “nationalcommunity,” the total political state, and heposited that the decline of the West was inti-mately connected to the decline through thecenturies of intermediate associations betweenthe individual and the state. George H. Nashhas succinctly outlined Nisbet’s thesis: “Theweakening or dissolution of such bonds as family,church, guild, and neighborhood had not, asmany had hoped, liberated men. Instead, itproduced alienation, isolation, spiritual desola-tion, and the growth of mass man.” With theweakening of alternative authorities, as Mark C.

The Quest forCommunity

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Henrie has noted, “the individual has nowhere tostand to articulate a perspective differing fromthat of the liberal polity and its culture.” Nisbetalerted post-war conservatives, many of whomwere uncompromising individualists, that “[t]hequest for community will not be denied, for itsprings from some of the powerful needs ofhuman nature—needs for a clear sense of culturalpurpose, membership, status, and continuity.”

The ideas contained in the works pennedby traditionalist conservatives, among the manyclassic works of post-W.W.II conservatives, maybe the most relevant to today’s concerns. Whatwith all the talk about and interest in the so-called “culture wars,” family values, drugs, educa-tion, welfare, crime, and quotas, it appears thatthe country is acutely aware that we are culturallyadrift and in danger of cutting ourselves off fromour shared past—and hence threatening the veryexistence of our Republic as outlined by ournation’s Founders. There are many indicationsthat the traditionalist social critique and prescrip-tion for remedy may now find the nation willing


to listen. In refashioning that message, we can dono better than to re-examine the works of Kirk,Weaver, and Nisbet.

Each of the conservative movement’s originalcomponents, libertarianism, anti-communism,and traditionalism, held in common a profoundantipathy toward twentieth-century liberalism.During the late 50s and 60s these disparategroups began to coalesce and, as George H.Nash has taught us, the difficult task of forging amovement began.

After the 1964 election, and especially afterthe implementation of Lyndon Johnson’s “GreatSociety” programs, the conservative movementwelcomed what was to become the fourth com-ponent of its intellectual coalition. Popularlyknown as “neoconservatives,” this group ofdisillusioned liberals, claiming, as one of themput it, to have been “mugged by reality,” mi-grated to the conservative cause. Reacting in partto the social uprisings of the 60s, in part to theisolationism and perceived “anti-Americanism” of

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the New Left, and in part to the consequences ofliberal activism in government, these giftednewcomers came to realize that good intentionsdo not guarantee good or effective government.

Irving Kristol is the principal neocon-servative figure, and his book On the Democratic

Idea in America helped to directand shape the conservative move-ment. The subject of the book, inKristol’s own words, was “thetendency of democratic republics todepart from...their original, ani-

mating principles, and as a consequence precipi-tate grave crises in the moral and political order.”Kristol condemned moral relativism as vigorouslyas did the traditionalists. As against the libertar-ians, however, he only gave “two cheers” forcapitalism. He noted that while he did “thinkthat, within limits, the notion of the ‘hiddenhand’ has its uses in the market place,” he alsobelieved that “the results are disastrous when it isextended to the polity as a whole....” For Kristol,“[s]elf-government, the basic principle of the

On theDemocraticIdea inAmerica


republic, is inexorably being eroded in favor ofself-seeking, self-indulgence, and just plainaggressive selfishness.” (Much of this book hasbeen reprinted in Kristol’s Neoconservatism: TheAutobiography of an Idea. This “memoir” offers anunsurpassed introduction to the development ofneoconservative thought in America.)

As one can see from the list of books men-tioned, American conservatism has in no waybeen monolithic. Rather, it is a collection ofdistinct intellectual groups, with distinct intellec-tual traditions. In retrospect, as George H. Nashobserved, it is remarkable that most conservativeshave managed to remain united and cooperativeat all. On practical day-to-day issues there hasbeen a surprising amount of convergence on theRight. As the journalist John Chamberlainobserved in an interview with Nash, whenconservatives moved from “first principles” to“first practices,” many of the internal “fights”disappeared. For most conservatives, politicalsuccess was based on cooperation.

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It is not to be expected that everyone hasread or will read all of the books that influencedthe course of growth the conservative movementwould take in the post-war years. But it isimportant to recognize that thought is alwaystransmuted through newspaper editorials, collegelectures, church sermons, policy and positionpapers, and radio and television talk shows, untilas Russell Kirk observed, “a crowd of peopleperhaps wholly unaware of the sources of theirconvictions come to embrace a particular view ofreligion or of morals or of politics.” It is in sucha way that these books have exerted an influenceon our culture.

While on their own these works may notguide us to future political successes or, moreimportantly, to a rebuilt or restored civil socialorder (we need new books, new writers, newapproaches), they nevertheless present to us“conservatism at its highest.” What the authorsof these books can do for us today, as RichardBrookhiser noted, “is raise the awkward ques-tions, show us what we missed the first timearound.” The rest is left for us to do.

10 Books of the Conservative Tradition*The Road to Serfdom ........................... F. A. HayekSocialism ................................... Ludwig von MisesMemoirs of a Superfluous Man ...... Albert Jay NockWitness ................................. Whittaker ChambersThe New Science of Politics ............... Eric VoegelinIn Defense of Freedom ........................ Frank MeyerThe Conservative Mind .......................Russell KirkIdeas Have Consequences ............... Richard WeaverThe Quest for Community .................Robert NisbetOn the Democratic Idea in America .... Irving Kristol

APPENDIX

Some of the Best Historical Introductionsto and Short Studies of Conservatism

HISTORY

*The Conservative Intellectual Movementin America Since 1945 ............. George H. Nash

*Each of the “Ten Best” books can by ordered at discountedprices from ISI by calling 1-800-526-7022. Note:

Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea isoffered in place of On the Democratic Idea in America.

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Short Introductionto Conservatism

Conservatism: Dream and Reality .....Robert Nisbet

Short Introductionto Classical Liberalism

Liberalism ............................................... John Gray

History ofPre-WWII American Conservatives

Superfluous Men............................ Robert Crunden

Anthology*Portable Conservative Reader .............Russell Kirk

Essay CollectionThe Public Philosophy

Reader ........................... Ed., Richard Bishirjian

Sourcebookof Conservative Thought

Right Minds ................................... Gregory Wolfe

Primary SourcesReflections on the Revolution

in France ................................... Edmund BurkeDemocracy in America ...........Alexis de TocquevilleThe Federalist Papers ....... Hamilton, Madison, Jay

Other Great Books ofthe Conservative Tradition

*The Roots of American Order ..............Russell KirkBureaucracy ............................... Ludwig von MisesThe Law ........................................ Frédéric Bastiat*The Conservative Affirmation

in America ........................... Willmoore Kendall*A Humane Economy ................... Wilhelm Roepke*The Constitution of Liberty ................ F. A. HayekNatural Right and History ....................Leo StraussA Better Guide Than Reason ......... M. E. BradfordThe Crisis of

Western Education .............Christopher DawsonThe Anti-Capitalist Mentality .. Ludwig von Mises*Democracy and Leadership ............... Irving Babbitt*The Social Crisis of Our Time ..... Wilhelm RoepkeThe Servile State ............................... Hilaire BellocI’ll Take My Stand.................. Twelve Southerners

*Visions of Order ........................... Richard WeaverNotes Toward the

Definition of Culture ......................... T. S. EliotThe Managerial Revolution ........... James BurnhamAttack on Leviathan (retitled Regionalism and

Nationalism in the U.S.) ........ Donald DavidsonChristianity and Political

Philosophy .................. Frederick D. WilhelmsenEnemies of the Permanent Things ........ Russell KirkReflections of a Neoconservative .......... Irving KristolOur Enemy, The State .................. Albert Jay NockCrowd Culture ...................... Bernard Iddings Bell*The Politics of Prudence ...................... Russell Kirk*Literature and the American College Irving BabbittOrder and History (5 vols) ................ Eric VoegelinUp from Liberalism .......... William F. Buckley, Jr.Historical Consciousness ....................... John LukacsOriginal Intentions ........................ M. E. BradfordThe Decline of the Intellectual ....... Thomas MolnarHuman Action .......................... Ludwig von MisesLaw, Legislation, & Liberty (3 vols) .. F. A. HayekSuicide of the West ......................... James BurnhamThe Theory of Education in

the United States ...................... Albert Jay Nock*Available from ISI

America’s Conservative Renaissance 31What is ISI?

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s (ISI)national program is designed to “educate forliberty.” ISI was founded in 1953 to further insuccessive generations of American college youtha better understanding of the economic, political,and spiritual values that sustain a free society.With ISI’s volunteer representatives at more than1,100 colleges, and with more than 55,000 ISIstudent and faculty members on virtually everycampus in the country, ISI directs hundreds ofthousands of young people each year to a widearray of educational programs that deepen theirunderstanding of the American ideal of orderedliberty. ISI conducts 340 educational programson campus each year, ranging from large publiclectures to intensive small-group seminars. TheInstitute also offers graduate fellowships toaspiring college teachers and circulates more thanhalf-a-million copies annually of major publica-tions.

Any student or professor can receive ISIpublications and participate in ISI programs freeof charge. To join, simply call 1-800-526-7022.

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INTERCOLLEGIATE STUDIES INSTITUTE3901 Centerville Road • Post Office Box 4431

Wilmington, Delaware 19807-0431

ten books that shaped america's conservative renaissance

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