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The Reactionary Mind
Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin
Corey Robin
304 pages
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210x140mm
978-0-19-979374-7
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Hardback
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10 November 2011
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We are awaiting more stock of this item from another OUP branch. Orders for out-of-stock items are supplied and charged as soon as the item becomes available.
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- Makes a controversial claim that is sure to generate debate: that the men and women of the right, from Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott to Sarah Palin and Antonin Scalia, are united by a common political project
- Written by a well-known and well-regarded observer of the contemporary political and cultural scene
What is conservatism today? And what is its lineage? In The Reactionary Mind, political scientist Corey Robin (author of the acclaimed and prize-winning Fear: The History of a Political Idea) makes a strikingly bold claim about the right's political and intellectual foundations.
Robin contends that from the eighteenth century through today, the right has been united by a defense of inequality and privilege and by a deep hostility to all forms of progressive politics. The book ranges widely, covering figures as various as Edmund Burke and Antonin Scalia, John C. Calhoun and Ayn Rand, Joseph de
Maistre and Phyllis Schlafly. While mindful of differences within the right, and of change across time, Robin insists upon the unifying themes of the "counterrevolutionary experience"--the defense of rule in the face of movements demanding freedom and equality. The variation on the right that one sees, Robin claims, is as much a product of tactical adjustment as anything else. The right has always learned from the left. Abhorring stasis, it has opted for a dynamic conception of society, involving struggle, violence, and war. This capacity for reinvention and partiality to violence has been crucial to its continued vitality.Readership: General readers, students, and scholars interested in American Politics and
Political Theory.
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Corey Robin, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center, CUNY Corey Robin teaches political science at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Harper's, and the London Review of Books.
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"This little book will continue to spark controversy: it is a witty, erudite and opinionated account of one of the most significant movements of our time." - Joanna Bourke, Times Higher Education "Corey Robin's extraordinary collection, constantly fresh, continuously sharp, and always clear and eloquent, provides the only satisfactory philosophically coherent account of elite conservatism I have ever read. Then there's this bonus: his remarkably penetrating side inquiry into the notion of 'national security' as a taproot of America's contemporary abuse of democracy. It's all great, a model in the exercise of humane letters." - Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland "This book is a fascinating exploration
of a central idea: that conservatism is, at its heart, a reaction against democratic challenges, in public and private life, to hierarchies of power and status. Corey Robin leads us through a series of case studies over the last few centuries - from Hobbes to Ayn Rand, from Burke to Sarah Palin - showing the power of this idea by illuminating conservatives both sublime and ridiculous." - Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University "Beautifully written, these essays deepen our understanding of why conservatism remains a powerful force in American politics." - Joyce Appleby, Professor Emerita of History, University of California-Los Angeles, and past president of the American Historical Association "The Reactionary
Mind is a wonderfully good read. It combines up-to-the-minute relevance with an eye to the intellectual history of conservatism in all its protean forms, going back as far as Hobbes, and taking in not only restrained and sentimental defenders of tradition such as Burke, but his more violent, proto-fascist contemporary Joseph de Maistre. Some readers will enjoy Corey Robin's dismantling of different recent thinkers - Barry Goldwater, Antonin Scalia, Irving Kristol; others will enjoy his demolition of Ayn Rand's intellectual pretensions. Some will be uncomfortable when they discover that those who too lightly endorse state violence, and even officially sanctioned torture, include some of their friends. That is one of the things that makes this such a good book." - Alan Ryan,
Professor of Political Theory, Oxford University
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Introduction
Part 1: Profiles in Reaction
Conservatism and Counterrevolution
The First Counterrevolutionary
Garbage and Gravitas
Inside Out
The Ex-Cons
Affirmative Action Baby
Part 2: The Virtues of Violence
A Color-Coded Genocide
Remembrance of Empires Past
Protocols of Machismo
Potomac Fever
Easy to Be Hard
Conclusion
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