by Allen Mendenhall
Patrick Allitt’s The Conservatives is an ambitious and concise book that earned backcover blurbs from all the “right”... more
Patrick Allitt’s The Conservatives is an ambitious and concise book that earned backcover blurbs from all the “right” people, including George Nash, an icon of conservative intellectualism, who remarks that “Patrick Allitt has written a perceptive, rigorously balanced, and richly panoramic account of conservative ideas and thinkers in American politics and culture since 1787.”
On the face of it, a title like The Conservatives raises more questions than it answers. “The conservatives” implies that there is a definite, nameable group of people who share a common vocabulary and worldview. But “conservative” is a fluid signifier as demonstrated by the sheer number and variety of people promoting conservatism while championing disparate and even incompatible beliefs. Trying to situate this term historically only multiplies its complexity.
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