The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot

By Russell Kirk

"It is inconceivable even to imagine, let alone hope for, a dominant conservative movement in America without Kirk's labor." William F. Buckley, Jr.

Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind is one of the greatest contributions to twentieth-century American conservatism. Brilliant in every respect, from its conception to its choice of significant figures representing the history of intellectual conservatism, The Conservative Mind launched the modern American Conservative Movement when it was first published in 1953 and has become an enduring classic of political thought.

The seventh revised edition features the complete text and an introduction by publisher Henry Regnery.

A must-read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gateway Editions
• Release date: Sep 1, 2001
• ISBN: 9781596985346

Russell Kirk

Russell Kirk (1918-1994), the father of intellectual conservatism in America, was the author of more than thirty books, including The Conservative Mind, Eliot and His Age, and The Roots of American Order. His legacy lives on in the work of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, based at his ancestral home in Mecosta, Michigan.

Reviews for The Conservative Mind

[johnnieburgessjr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book helped spark interest in the conservative movement in America.

[Eric Vought · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book itself is a classic and excellent, it explores the true heart of American conservative thought, not as a mere resistance to change, but as a principled and prudent preference for a *particular kind of change*, one rooted in recognition of higher purpose, natural law, and our role as temporary stewards of something which, ultimately, does not belong to us, but is greater than ourselves. It describes the ideas, struggles, and sometimes errors of the core thinkers of conservatism in the style of Burke from the 18th through 20th centuries and is a must read for anyone who wishes to understand where we, as Americans, came from, not as a myth of a fabled past but as a continual and still-relevant struggle.

[Note edit/correction below.]
The e-book on the other hand... leaves a great deal to be desired. The underlying text is clearly OCRed, because search works, and highlighted passages are indexed, but copy and paste is completely disabled--- even though the work frequently quotes other works which are public domain, making it extremely difficult to look up unfamilar terms, share passages to fellow readers, take external notes, perform scholarship and cite among other basic tasks. You can take notes internally, adding them to higlighted passages, but then you *cannot copy your OWN notes out*, nor can you even PASTE in the definition of Sanscullotism, for instance, that you just looked up! The ridiculous over-protection of a 1950s text practically ruins what might otherwise be very useful. An e-text has an opportunity to be more than a paper book; that opportunity is missed.

[Edit: Apparently, these problems are only when viewing this book in the Android app. I can actually select and copy using the menu when reading in Chrome, I can paste into notes, and I can copy from notes. I cannot do this in the Scribd app on Android, but I can with many (not all) other Scribd books, so it is not merely a problem with the Android app, either. I have therefore increased my original rating.]