Preface
Some years ago， I published a collection of essays under the title American
Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century. (I entitled the trade book
edition Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?) The study was one part of the
extensive American Heritage Series put out by Bobbs-Merrill under the
general editorship of Professors Leonard Levy and Alfred Young.
Almost two decades have gone by since the book s appearance， and
few would deny that during that time much has happened that explicates
conservative thought. No one would deny that political action of historic
consequence has issued from such thought. It did not surprise me when，
a year ago， I was asked by Harper & Row to bring out a new edition of
the book.
To do this competently， I needed the help of a scholar in whom I had
confidence， who had spent time during recent years studying the relevant
literature. I was lucky to have discovered Charles Kesler while he was still
in high school as something of a prodigy. He graduated magna cum laude
from Harvard in 1978 and got his Ph.D. there in political science in 1985，
having written a dissertation on Cicero and the Natural Law. He agreed
to collaborate with me.
To my surprise， what grew out of a fresh scholarly investigation was
a book substantially new. Only 30 percent of the essays published in the
1970 volume survive. It isn t that the discarded material is less interesting
now than then. But perspectives change， new authors write， and old
authors whose work was neglected sometimes reappear with fresh rele-
vance. And， of course， there is the problem of space. It became necessary，
at the end， for us to discard eight essays we had intended to include.
Along the way， I suggested that Kesler take primary responsibility for
the volume， given his more recent experience with the material. We
agreed that the book should retain much of the introductory material I
provided in the original volume， including， material I wrote to introduce
the discrete sections. (They remain substar~lly the same: The Quest for
a Tradition; the Status of Freedom; the Cr~ique of Rationalism; Political
Economy and the Welfare State; Contemporary Challenges and the So-
|
内容加载中，请稍后...
商品评论（0条）