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The typical conservative may be only vaguely familiar with Russel] Kirk as a traditionalist thinker, and as one of the founders of modern American conservatism; and in the academic world, Kirk scholarship remains rare. As a result, Kirk survives mostly as an icon— remembered fondly but not really valued at his true worth.

W. Wesley McDonald, a professor of political science at Elizabethtown College, has moved to fill this void by offering a stimulating intellectual biography of his mentor and friend. Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology avoids hagiography, and provides a serious and thought-provoking discussion of the philosophical underpinnings of Kirk’s work. McDonald seeks to make Kirk’s ideas understandable and accessible by examining them from the philosophical ground up; the result is a careful and engaging account of the battle of ideas at the heart not only of modern American conservatism but of Western political thought.

The typical conservative may be only vaguely familiar with Russel] Kirk as a traditionalist thinker, and as one of the founders of modern American conservatism; and in the academic world, Kirk scholarship remains rare. As a result, Kirk survives mostly as an icon— remembered fondly but not really valued at his true worth.

W. Wesley McDonald, a professor of political science at Elizabethtown College, has moved to fill this void by offering a stimulating intellectual biography of his mentor and friend. Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology avoids hagiography, and provides a serious and thought-provoking discussion of the philosophical underpinnings of Kirk’s work. McDonald seeks to make Kirk’s ideas understandable and accessible by examining them from the philosophical ground up; the result is a careful and engaging account of the battle of ideas at the heart not only of modern American conservatism but of Western political thought.