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Palgrave Macmillan

Pragmatic Conservatism

Edmund Burke and His American Heirs

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

  • An in-depth examination of Edmund Burke as the father of what the author calls pragmatic conservatism

  • A carefully articulated and well-written study of a kind of conservatism that has been neglected and underappreciated since the mid-twentieth century

  • Includes insightful comparisons of Burkean conservative thought to current more known styles of conservatism

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

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About this book

This book is a study of pragmatic conservatism, an underappreciated tradition in modern American political thought, whose origins can be located in the ideas of Edmund Burke. Beginning with an exegesis of Burke's thought, it goes on to show how three twentieth-century thinkers who are not generally recognized as conservatives—Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Peter Viereck—carried on the Burkean tradition and adapted it to American democracy. Pragmatic conservatives posit that people, sinful by nature, require guidance from traditions that embody enduring truths wrought by past experience. Yet they also welcome incremental reform driven by established elites, judiciously departing from precedent when necessary. Mindful that truth is never absolute, they eschew ideology and caution against both bold political enterprises and stubborn apologies for the status quo. The book concludes by contrasting this more nuanced brand of conservatism with the radical version that emerged in the wake of the post-war Buckley revolution.

Reviews

“Lacey chiefly discusses four writers he believes exemplify pragmatic conservatism: Edmund Burke, Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Peter Viereck. … Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” (M. Blitz, Choice, Vol. 54 (6), February, 2017) 

“The philosophic underpinnings of the conservative movement have reached a dead end.  In his wonderful new book, Robert J. Lacey describes Burkean conservatism – or, as he prefers to call it, pragmatic conservatism – as an alternative conservative philosophy articulated by great thinkers of the past which may become the conservatism of the future.  Lacey’s clear and crisp prose makes his book about great ideas a terrific read.” (Carl T. Bogus, Roger Williams University, USA, and author of “Buckley: William F. Buckley Jr. and the Rise of American Conservatism” (2011)) 

“In the age of Trump, it is enormously useful to have a reminder of what conservatism was before it went off the rails.  Lacey has written just the right reminder we need.” (Alan Wolfe, Boston College, USA, and author of “The Future of Liberalism” (2009))

“Lacey builds a credible case that America’s modern liberals are also its genuine conservatives, while its avowed conservatives are right-wing radical Jacobins.  His featured subjects share Edmund Burke’s pragmatic conservatism, which seeks to preserve society by means of sensible reforms.” (Drew Maciag, author of “Edmund Burke in America: The Contested Career of the Father of Modern Conservatism” (2013))

Authors and Affiliations

  • Iona College, New Rochelle, USA

    Robert J. Lacey

About the author

Robert J. Lacey is Associate Professor of Political Science at Iona College, USA.  He is also the author of American Pragmatism and Democratic Faith (2008).

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