Pragmatic Conservatism - 9781349958245

Palgrave Macmillan

Pragmatic ConservatismEdmund Burke and His American Heirs\nAuthor(s): Robert J. Lacey\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Palgrave Macmillan, United Kingdom\nImprint: Palgrave Macmillan\nISBN-13: 9781349958245, 978-1349958245\nSynopsis\nThis book is a study of pragmatic conservatism, an underappreciated tradition in modern American political thought, whose origins can be located in the ideas of Edmund Burke. Beginning with an exegesis of Burke's thought, it goes on to show how three twentieth-century thinkers who are not generally recognized as conservativesWalter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Peter Viereckcarried on the Burkean tradition and adapted it to American democracy. Pragmatic conservatives posit that people, sinful by nature, require guidance from traditions that embody enduring truths wrought by past experience. Yet they also welcome incremental reform driven by established elites, judiciously departing from precedent when necessary. Mindful that truth is never absolute, they.