Roger Scruton

The philosopher Roger Scruton was the leading conservative thinker of the post-war years. In this book are assembled the very best of his essays and commentaries, arranged thematically. The selection has been made and edited by Mark Dooley, Scruton's literary executor.

Throughout this collection, Scruton proves himself to be at his most scintillating and controversial. He writes with passion and conviction about such varied topics as feminism, racism, fascism, Tony Blair and Donald Trump, as well as subjects like global warming, music and architecture. He takes aim at those who defy conservative common sense in favour of liberal falsehoods. This book shows Scruton at his most brilliant and demonstrates how his influence will remain strong and enduring.

 

Roger Scruton's How to be a Conservative presents the case for modern conservatism not in the terms of an elegy but rather as a practical example of how to live as a conservative despite the pressures to live otherwise. As he writes, the book 'is not about what we have lost, but about what we have retained, and how to hold on to it'.

In this witty and frank account, Scruton draws on his years of experience as a counter-cultural presence in public life. He examines the truths in Nationalism, Socialism, Capitalism, Liberalism, Multiculturalism, Environmentalism, Internationalism and finally Conservatism. The book concludes on a personal note, with 'a valediction forbidding mourning but admitting loss'.

We are familiar with the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for the health and also the rival opinion that any more than a glass or two will set us on the road to ruin. Whether or not good for the body, Scruton argues, wine, drunk in the right frame of mind, is definitely good for the soul. And there is no better accompaniment to wine than philosophy. By thinking with wine, you can learn not only to drink in thoughts but to think in draughts.

This good-humoured book offers an antidote to the pretentious clap-trap that is written about wine today and a profound apology for the drink on which civilisation has been founded. In vino veritas.

In this timely new edition of his classic book A Political Philosophy, celebrated conservative philosopher Roger Scruton interrogates contemporary values, virtues and morality.

What principles should govern our relations to animals, the nation state, the environment and other ways of life? What does modern marriage look like? What is Enlightenment and how has its inheritance made itself known? How should we approach religion, evil and death? What explains the rise of totalitarianism and how should we respond to nihilism?

In these philosophical reflections, Scruton adopts his characteristically articulate and unorthodox tone, making no concessions to intellectual fashion. The result is a book of bold, clear thinking that will seem refreshingly logical to many, particularly those seeking a return to first principles in an increasingly baffling age of modernity.