Ten Conservative Books Revisited
In 1986, Russell Kirk gave a lecture titled “Ten Conservative Books” in which he identified ten important books that distilled or expressed conservative principles, from Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France to T. S. Eliot’s Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, the book Kirk pressed upon the hapless Richard Nixon. The essay is worth reading not only for the book suggestions but also for what Kirk has to say about the role of books in the culture; as a bookish person himself, Kirk valued tomes highly, and having been in his library—a converted factory near his ancestral Piety Hill home—there is no question that Kirk was a bibliophile.
Yet Kirk recognized that “It is possible for books to comment upon custom, convention, and continuity; but not for books to create those social and cultural essences. Society brings forth books; books do not bring forth society.” Cultural renewal must occur at the level of the person, family, and community; books can help that process, but wise books come from societies that value and reflect upon wisdom; rarely the other way round.
With that in mind, there is some merit in supplementing Kirk’s list a quarter century on, so herewith my choices for ten conservative books.
2. Patrick Leigh-Fermor, A Time of Gifts. Leigh-Fermor, who died recently, was in some sense the highest product of the tradition whose destruction Roth lamented. A polymath, courageous soldier (he led a British commando unit in occupied Crete during World War II), and elegant writer, Leigh-Fermor as a young man walked through Europe to Constantinople, just as Nazism was rising on the Continent. This book, the first volume of two covering the journey, describes a pre-Internet, pre-EU Europe of deeply local customs and perspectives, a collage of nations that is almost impossible for us to imagine; almost, because Leigh-Fermor’s prose makes such imagination possible.
]4. John Lukacs, Last Rites. After Dawson Lukacs is perhaps the historian every conservative should read. Lukacs—a Hungarian refugee to the United States—has written a series of books articulating a defense of European and specifically Anglo-American civilization. He is no mindless defender of right-wing orthodoxy—far from it. But his perspective on patriotism and the moral nature of history, among many other subjects, makes this book—a follow up to his amazing first volume of memoirs, Confessions of an Original Sinner—a perfect introduction to his other works, including the indispensable Historical Consciousness, which explodes every progressive myth about historical thinking you can imagine.
6. Bill Kauffman, Ain’t My America. Most books by conservatives are, in some sense, a recovery of all the things about ourselves—our history, our nature, our religious tradition—that is papered over in the standard liberal accounts. Bill Kauffman’s books are a healthy antidote. Along with Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Cons, Kauffman has reenergized a conservative turn toward the local and the undiscovered history of America. In this book, Kauffman revives the noble history of the American conservative antiwar tradition, not in some ersatz “Occupy” nonsense but in defense of home and family, where every conservative position should begin.
8. David Jones, The Anathemata. Jones is not often heard of when discussing the World War I generation of poets. Yet this poem, which grew out of his experiences as a soldier in the Great War, represents an attempt to deal with what he and others called “the Break,” that disjunction from tradition occurring in the modern world that renders the past almost unintelligible to us. This poem is hard reading, yet repays the effort. Jones was also a visual artist, trying to capture the Western tradition in stone and watercolor, and to the same end: to recover what has been lost.
10. Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence. Conservatives often criticize the present in favor of the past, but too often this is just nostalgia. Barzun, who died earlier this year at the age of 105 after a remarkably productive career as a writer and teacher, surveys in this magnificent tome the last five hundred years of Western cultural life and gives us the tools and the framework conservatives, and all those interested in cultural change, need to discuss whether, in fact, the West is declining when measured against its past achievements (the answer is yes).
Books for Imaginative Conservatives are available in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore. Republished with the gracious permission of the University Bookman.
Gerald, a treasure!
Thank you so much! Headed to used book store this day 🙂
I know Prof Russello read Wolfe's book. So how, I wonder, did he seem to miss the book's point. Truth in the arts will not save the world. As Wolfe makes it clear in the title: Beauty Will Save The World.
Wolfe's work at Image Journal, the Glen East and Glen West workshops he puts on across the country, and with the MFA program at Seattle Pacific University, is engaged not to "revivify the search for truth in the arts", but instead to revivify Beauty in the visual arts, in fiction, creative non-fiction, and in poetry. Specifically, the Beauty that comes through when creators allow the transcendent to whisper through their work.
A recent quote Image Journal posted through Facebook, which comes from Hans Urs Von Balthasar, I think makes this clear:
"Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance"
A lot of folks believe that if we struggle for truth and goodness, then beauty will simply follow along. No. One must struggle for all at the same time. Gregory Wolfe has made it his life's work to struggle on behalf of beauty.
Btw, Kimberly, you're not likely to find Wolfe's book in a used bookstore. I'd suggest ordering it online. I'd also suggest subscribing to Image Journal.