The much anticipated biography of Russell Kirk, the founder of modern American conservatism, has been released. , authored by , the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy at CU-Boulder in 2014-15, is available from the University Press of Kentucky.
The post-World War II conservative movement lost its most conspicuous organizing principle with the collapse of the Soviet Union: its anti-Communism. And arguably with the general success of the Reagan Revolution, a complacency set in that made American conservatism 鈥渓ose鈥� its 茅lan to bring about a free-market economics.
If the two pillars of postwar conservatism were anti-Communism and the free market, Russell Kirk strove to communicate that even more 鈥減ermanent things鈥� (his preferred term) should be at the heart of American conservatism: above all the social life of the family and the small scale community; a good and healthy culture, popular, high, and civic; and a robust humanistic tradition of letters, preferably grounded in religion. Anti-Communism and the market, to Kirk, were prefaces, essential ones surely, but prefaces all the same, to the positive activities of a healthy 鈥渃onservative鈥� American society.
This towering figure required a biographer who would be true to his completeness. We owe Brad thanks for writing this book, and Kirk鈥檚 imperative legacy our attentions once again.
Find the book here:听