The Library of conservative thought

A revision, to July 1914, of the chapters relating to the nation and the state from the author's treatise on "Political science and comparative constitutional law" published in 1890. cf. Pref.

One of the most important developments of Western civilization has been the growth of historical consciousness. Consciously or not, history has become a form of thought applied to every facet of human experience; every field of human action can be studied, described, or understood through its history. In this extraordinary analysis of the meaning of the remembered past, John Lukacs discusses the evolution of historical consciousness since its first emergence about three centuries ago.

Lord George Bentinck is an account of Disraeli's relation with his parliamentary colleague and friend. It is a vivid story of one of the great parliamentary dramas in British history. It is hard to overstate the bitterness and fury which Peel's decision to repeal the corn laws had provoked in British politics. Friendships were sundered, families divided, and the feuds of politics carried into private life to a degree quite unusual in British history. But the worth of this book goes beyond constitutional history or even the Irish potato famine. Disraeli helps explain the intellectual and ideological grounds of the Young England Movement, a conservative force that aimed at a union of discontented industrial workers with aristocratic landowners and against factious Whigs, selfish factory owners, and dissenting shopkeepers. In forging such a policy of principle, the Conservatives, as Disraeli's book well demonstrates, became a minority party but one which carried the full weight of moral politics.

Wilhelm Roepke may have been the soundest economist of the twentieth century. He understood the limitations as well as the strengths of his discipline. Economists are often tempted to take the easy way out, by denying reality to aspects of human existence and reducing them to arbitrary and subjective tastes and preferences. Roepke never does this, and this is his strength. He realizes that all of these are legitimate aspects of human experience which must be satisfied in a balanced and harmonious social existence. Nature, sex, religion, beauty, and politics are all meaningful as parts of the whole. Problems occur only when each segment attempts to become the whole. THe original title of this book, Civitas Humana, contains a double meaning. It promises a treatment of questions fundamental not only to human society but also to humane society. The volume combines distinct aspects of life. Half of the book is devoted to questions of economic and social life. The other half examines spiritual and national life. Chapters include "Moral Foundations," "The Place of Science in the City of Man," "Counterweights to the State," "Congestion and Proletarianisation of Society," and "Economic System and International New Order." Although Roepke recognized the validity of the nation in the modern world, he was constantly trying to find the smaller agencies within society in which real allegiances and loyalties were to be developed. His ideas continue to be of significance. As described by William F. Campbell in the new introduction, The Moral Foundations of Civil Society is a necessary addition to the libraries of economists, sociologists, theologians, and philosophers. -- from back cover.