Given the confused and dispirited state of American conservatism at the present moment, it is high time for a Russell Kirk revival. The very thought of such a revival is appealing, even exhilarating, and the appearance of Bradley J. Birzer’s splendid and exhaustively researched biography of Kirk just might provide the catalyst needed to set it in motion. Not that Kirk has become a forgotten figure in the 21 years since his death. A number of valuable studies of his life and work are already available, including those by James Person, Gerald Russello, and the late W. Wesley McDonald; and the most important of the Wizard of Mecosta’s multitudinous writings, such as The Conservative Mind and The Roots of American Order, have remained continuously in print, thanks to the good graces of ISI Books. For anyone genuinely interested in conservative thought, it would be hard to miss Kirk, and few writers of such stature are more of a pleasure to read in the original.
But that does not mean that the distinctive features of his message have been getting an adequate hearing, particularly among those whom he liked to call “the rising generation.” Even the most worthy heritage has to be freshly appropriated by those who inherit it. And the Kirkian way of doing things is a taste that must be acquired. To those who are accustomed to thinking of conservatism as chiefly a matter of public policy, of school vouchers and capital-gains taxes and health savings accounts, all presented in crisp quantitative tables and soggy bureaucratic prose, Kirk’s message, with its historical sweep and poetic splendor, its delight in the pursuit of beauty and fancy, its disdain for academicism in all forms, and its talent for making us feel the vital connection between ourselves and the stories of vanished peoples and things of the past, will come as a great and pleasant surprise. For Kirk, conservatism was not a set of policy desiderata. It was a disposition of grateful wonder that calls us to acknowledge our deepest places, the sources of our being, and to strive to live in respectful and loving harmony with them.
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