Conservative Thinkers: From John Adams to Winston Churchill

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Transaction Publishers - 191 pages

Across America today, conservatism is being hotly debated both across the political spectrum and within the conservative movement itself. Much of the public debate is without definition or historical context. This history of conservatism by renowned historian, social critic, and poet Peter Viereck aims to meet the need for a concise, balanced picture of conservative thought in all its different shadings and cultural contexts. The analytical portion of the book provides a succinct but thorough critical overview of conservatism's most representative figures. Viereck begins with chapters defining conservatism itself, its special technical terms, and its changing historical circumstances. The rest deals with its actual thinkers and statesmen. After each main conservative thesis, the anti-conservative rebuttal is summarized, and the reader is allowed to reach his own conclusions. Though the first stress is on conservative political philosophy (from John Adams to Churchill), key sections also stress non-political conservatism: in religion (Cardinal Newman) and in the primarily cultural protest against material progress (Coleridge, Dostoyevsky, Melville, Henry Adams). Every major point is concretely illustrated by an appended cross-reference to a primary source in the second half, a well-chosen anthology of key conservative documents. Criteria for inclusion are three, representativeness, depth of perception, importance of influence. The result is not uniformity but a gamut: from extreme intolerant reaction to an evolutionary moderate spirit. The former passes imperceptibly into authoritarianism; the latter, into liberalism. Peter Viereck is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, critic, and historian. He held the Kenan Chair in History at Mount Holyoke College. Among his books are Metapolitics: From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler, Unadjusted Man in the Age of Overadjustment, Conservatism Revisited, and Strict Wildness: Discoveries in Poetry and History, all available from Transaction.

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Contents

GENERAL
10
2 ARISTOCRAT AND OTHER SPECIAL TERMS
18
FROM INTERNATIONALISM TO NATIONALISM
22
BRITISH
25
5 COLERIDGE CARLYLE NEWMAN
33
DISRAELI AND CHURCHILL
41
LATIN EUROPE
49
MODERATE ANTIJACOBINS
56
10 CLEMENS VON METTERNICH 1820 18171848
134
11 BENJAMIN DISRAELI 1835 1847 1848 1862 1867 1872
139
12 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 1835 1840 184852
145
13 JOHN C CALHOUN 1838 1850
149
14 THOMAS CARLYLE 1843
151
15 DON JUAN DONOSO CORTÉS 1851
153
16 JAKOB BURCKHARDT 18641893
158
17 FEODOR DOSTOYEVSKY 1864
160

AUTHORITARIAN NATIONALISTS
60
DONOSO CORTÉS
63
EAST OF THE RHINE
69
12 GERMANY
77
13 RUSSIA
84
THE UNITED STATES
87
15 CALHOUN
96
16 AMERICA SINCE THE CIVIL WAR
99
DOCUMENTS
109
1 EDMUND BURKE 1770 1790
110
2 JOHN ADAMS 17761821
115
3 ALEXANDER HAMILTON 1787
118
4 JAMES MADISON 1787
120
5 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 1791 1822
122
6 SAMUEL T COLERIDGE 17981832
125
7 FRIEDRICH GENTZ 1801
128
8 JOSEPH DE MAISTRE 1810 1821
129
9 ADAM MÜLLER 1819
133
18 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN 1864 1865
161
19 PIUS IX 1864
164
20 LOUIS VEUILLOT 1866
166
21 HENRY SUMNER MAINE 1885
167
22 FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE 1886 1889
168
23 KONSTANTIN PETROVICH POBIEDONOSTSEV 1898
170
24 WINSTON S CHURCHILL 19031946
173
25 W G SUMNER 1904
176
26 MAURICE BARRÈS 1916
178
27 IRVING BABBITT 1924
179
28 ORTEGA Y GASSET 1930
181
29 GEORGE SANTAYANA 1951
183
30 FRANK TANNENBAUM 1952
184
31 WALL STREET JOURNAL 1955
185
SUGGESTED READING FOR STUDENTS
187
INDEX
188
Copyright

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Page 94 - The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body.
Page 114 - Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties.
Page 27 - It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
Page 31 - A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
Page 93 - The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.
Page 176 - From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
Page 35 - The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game They burst their manacles and wear the name Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain!

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