Rearview Mirror, The

Human Events, Nov 1, 2004 by Lamb, Kevin

The Rearview Mirror

Two Must-Read Books for Conservatives

As an author and a literary critic, Chilton Williamson, Jr. has surveyed the landscape of conservative literature throughout his career as literary editor at National Review for 14 years and currently as book review editor for Chronicles. In The Conservative Bookshelf, Williamson highlights 50 essential books for conservatives-a continuous ranking (1-50) across six different categories: Religion, politics, society, economics, the prophetic artist, and the present day. Each book is summarized in separate chapters.

Williamson explains the idea of a "coherent 'conservative' tradition" in his introduction and elaborates on what he argues (rightly in my view) is an ideological drift by self-professed contemporary conservatives away from conservative principles.

"High-powered, high-pressured modern society has largely succeeded in reducing conservatism from a broadly informed religious, intellectual, moral, and aesthetic tradition to a narrow and shallow party politics that often amounts to nothing more than a party line," he writes.

Williamson defines "conservatism" as "man's willingness to discern or accept a fundamental and unchangeable plan for man-and stick with it." Some readers will notice the absence of neoconservative titles from his list, but he carefully explains the distinction between the "neoconservative" and traditional "conservative" literature. Don't expect to find David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise in Williamson's pantheon of essential conservative books.

He begins with The Bible at No. 1, arguing that the basis of Western Civilization is grounded upon Christianity and quotes Russell Kirk, who pointed out that religion is the cornerstone of culture. This section also includes summaries of: C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, St. Augustine's City of God, and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

The balance of the book features titles that likewise should be familiar to most conservatives: Both Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre's classics on the French revolution, James Burnham's The Suicide of the West and The Managerial Revolution, Witness by Whittaker Chambers (arguably the most important autobiography in the modern era), Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences, Michael Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics, and Other Essays, Hillaire Belloc's The Servile State, Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind, and Friedrich A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.

Williamson also includes some important but often neglected conservative books. Kenneth Minogue's The Liberal Mind is a good example. Minogue's book, originally published by Random House in 1963, comprehensively explored the fallacies and illusions of liberal ideology. Although not included in Williamson's survey, Minogue's 1985 book Alien Powers: The Pure Theory of Ideology could easily rank among this top-50 list. Also noticeably missing is H. L. Mencken's Notes on Democracy, a perceptive and often witty critique of democratic governance.

Forrest McDonald's memoirs Recovering the Past is one of the more absorbing recent books of interest to conservative readers. McDonald, currently the Distinguished University Research Professor at the University of Alabama, has received numerous awards and honorary degrees over the years for. his original scholarship on the founding of the American republic, the Constitution, and the American presidency.

In his memoirs, McDonald recounts his lifetime of experiences as an educator and researcher in a compelling narrative that is peppered with blunt assessments of his own profession (as educator and historian) and historical trends. He devotes considerable space to raking left-wing revisionist historians over the coals. His scrutiny of Charles Beard and the scholarship of other celebrated historians who see the founding of the republic as a period of economic and political "oppression" is quite instructive.

McDonald defends the responsibility of the historian as scholar, which is to teach and pass on to the next generation the understanding of distilled knowledge from previous generations of historians.

That some conservatives might blush at his traditional view of education shows how much society has changed in 45 years. For example, he fondly describes the scene at Brown University, where he landed an associate professorship in 1959:

"The truly wonderful thing about Brown in those days was its undergraduate students. Roughly a quarter of the 3,600 undergraduates were females, who had their own college, Pembroke, situated on the opposite side of the campus from the men's dormitories and fraternity houses. Pembrokers expected to be employed for a while after college, but few aspired to careers. Instead, they were trained to be well-educated, poised, and proper young ladies who would be hostesses and ornaments to the professional men they would marry."

One of McDonald's personal anecdotes is worth re-telling. After leaving Brown he accepted a professorship at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich., during the tumultuous period of the late 1960s. Students at Wayne State generally ".. .paid their own tuition by working on assembly lines and hoped through education to better their lot." Upon settling into his new teaching post, McDonald wanted to find out more about his students.