the conservative mind from burke to eliot

The president of Kenyon College, Gordon Keith Chalmers, reviewed the book in the New York Times, calling it “very readable, brilliant, even eloquent.” The book was widely reviewed and roundly praised even by most of the major liberal publications in mid-century America. TIME magazine devoted its entire book review section to Kirk’s tome Henry Luce was personally smitten by its erudition, scholarship, and popular appeal. The Conservative Mind achieved a kind of minor-classic status almost from the beginning, and it launched the young Kirk into a spotlight that shone for the rest of his long life. He looked elsewhere for a publisher and eventually inked a deal with Regnery, commencing a lifelong friendship. But when one of the chief editors demanded that the young author cut significant portions from the manuscript, Kirk demurred. Andrews, was initially accepted by a major New York publishing house. The text, which began as Kirk’s doctoral thesis at the University of St. Buckley, Jr.’s God and Man at Yale (1951), and Whittaker Chambers’s Witness (1952). Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944), William F. It is widely regarded as one of the seminal tomes of mid-century American conservatism, in the same iconic pantheon as F.A. The Conservative Mind, published in 1953 by the Henry Regnery Publishing Company of Chicago, instantly became an unlikely overnight publishing sensation.

Kirk was one of the society’s most distinguished members.

To commemorate its publication, the Philadelphia Society recently sponsored a three-day series of forums, lectures, and seminars in Atlanta. One of the foundational texts of the conservative movement, Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind, is turning sixty this year.

The conservative mind from burke to eliot