About this item
A brief magisterial introduction to the conservative tradition by one of Britain's leading intellectuals.In Conservatism, Roger Scruton offers the reader an invitation into the world of political philosophy by explaining the history and evolution of the conservative movement over the centuries. With the clarity and authority of a gifted teacher, he discusses the ideology's perspective on civil society, the rule of law, freedom, morality, property, rights, and the role of the state. In a time when many claim that conservatives lack a unified intellectual belief system, this book makes a very strong case to the contrary, one that politically-minded readers will find compelling and refreshing. Scruton analyzes the origins and development of conservatism through the philosophies and thoughts of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, among others.
About the Author
Roger Vernon Scruton, FBA, FRSL (/?skru?t?n/; born 27 February 1944) is an English philosopher who specialises in aesthetics. He has written over thirty books, including Art and Imagination (1974) , The Meaning of Conservatism (1980) , Sexual Desire (1986) , The Philosopher on Dover Beach (1990) , The Aesthetics of Music (1997) , Beauty (2009) , How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism (2012) , Our Church (2012) , and How to be a Conservative (2014) . Scruton has also written several novels and a number of general textbooks on philosophy and culture, and he has composed two operas.Scruton was a lecturer and professor of aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London, from 1971 to 1992. Since 1992, he has held part-time positions at Boston University, the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and the University of St Andrews. In 1982 he helped found The Salisbury Review, a conservative political journal, which he edited for 18 years, and he founded the Claridge Press in 1987. Scruton sits on the editorial board of the British Journal of Aesthetics, and is a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Scruton has been called "the man who, more than any other, has defined what conservatism is" by British MEP Daniel Hannan and "England's most accomplished conservative since Edmund Burke" by The Weekly Standard.Outside his career as a philosopher and writer, Scruton was involved in the establishment of underground universities and academic networks in Soviet-controlled Central Europe during the Cold War, and he has received a number of awards for his work in this area.Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Pete Helme (http://www.rogerscruton.com) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) ], via Wikimedia Commons.
