Allitt's book describing the paradoxical history of conservatism in America is, well, paradoxical. He's very good at pointing out the tensions (dare I say inconsistencies?) in American conservative thought, and does a remarkably good job of staying disinterested about most of the authors he discusses. This does have a cost: he's aware of the tensions, but his 'objective' standpoint means that he can't criticize the bad thinking to which those tensions lead. To take the most obvious example, conservatism has always been about preserving communities; American conservatism (and, increasingly, depressingly, conservatism everywhere) since the cold war has been about supporting economic processes that destroy communities. Because of his objective standpoint, he can't do any analysis of problems like that.

Also odd is his attempt to read 'conservatism' back into American history. His approach isn't obviously objectionable (he defines early conservatives as those who try to preserve anything), and it leads to some provoking ideas (the civil war as a clash of two different forms of conservatism). The problem is clear, though- there's a big difference between 'conservatives' who want to 'preserve' market societies, and conservatives who wanted to preserve communities in the face of markets. The former want to preserve something that never existed before; the latter have to change everything in order to preserve what used to be.

But this is a problem with conservatism as such, not just with Allitt's book. It suffers all the usual flaws of 'intellectual' history (you'd never suspect from this book that conservatives reacted to anything other than the ideas of liberals, socialists, communists, democrats, abolitionists and federalists; it looks like history is nothing other than a long line of men writing their thoughts down for posterity and so on), but also possesses all of its virtues (clarity, narrative flow).

[As a special bonus, the back-cover blurbs are idiotic: the Hoover Institute representative suggests that the book is about "a uniquely American core of convictions repeatedly summoned to hold the fort against waves of Europeanizing assailants," which would be news to the large number of Europhilic conservatives throughout American history (Santayana, James, Henry Adams, just to name a few). A professor from Wisconsin-Milwaukee thinks that conservatism "has an American history best understood in terms of its fluid meanings, plural definitions and oppositional currents," which I'm pretty sure is a nice/self-delusional way of saying "American conservatives want to be part of a tradition, but they aren't; by and large they're just knee-jerk reactionaries." Which is probably close to the truth given the characteristics of conservative thought in U.S. history (i.e., that almost all conservatives became liberals during the 1960s), particularly if you ignore the above-mentioned Europhiles]. ( )

On the Burkean Conservative Tradition

In this important historical survey, Professor Patrick Allitt seeks to explore the intellectual tradition of conservatism as experienced in the U.S. and its impact on the political and economic scene. Its opposition to a liberal tradition which according to William F. Buckley is philosophically incoherent, lacking in moral foundation, suppressive of individual freedom, fetishizes doubt rather than standing firm on the certain truths, and believes in the power of the state to engineer equality and social progress.

In my opinion, Allitt does a great job emphasizing and exploring the historical construct and etymology of the term "conservatism" and what it actually means. Not until the 1950s did conservatives themselves refer to their ideology as "conservative" and therefore we must be careful in its use.

In my opinion, Allitt's analysis is especially strong during the revolutionary and antebellum era. The intellectual tradition established by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster of the Whig Party in opposition to the populist swagger of Andrew Jackson is very well explored, if a little short. By the time Allitt reaches William F. Buckley I think the book begins to feel a little rushed. The confluence of traditionalism, libertarianism, and communism could certainly fill several books, but Allitt is unfortunately only able to partially explore them fully. In this way, Allan J. Lichtman's "White Protestant Nation" does a better job exploring conservatism in the context of the later half of 20th century America.

With the ascent of a liberal, progressive, Democrat now in the White House, there has been much recent discussion about where the conservatives go from here, this book is a good primer on how they got to where they are now. Therefore, I recommend this as mandatory reading for all those who considers themselves conservatives. ( )