English Conservatism Since the Restoration

This work provides both a short account of the doctrine of conservatism, and a selection of extracts from key writings to elucidate its argument. Robert Eccleshall traces the history of the doctrine from its origins in divine-right monarchy to the current preoccupation with the enterprise culture. Challenging the accepted view of conservatives as pragmatists who eschew philosophical abstractions, he argues that they have been consistent in selectively using principles to construct a distinctive image of the social order. They have emphasized, on the one hand, the military virtues of duty, obedience, loyalty and submission to the authority of the state, and, on the other, the need for political leadership by a natural aristocracy or entrepeneurial elite. Also highlighed is the persistent continuing tension within the conservative party between, on the one hand free-marketeers, and on the other patrician tories, who favour government intervention in the economy and the "one nation" approach to the social order. The conservative writers from whose works extracts are provided include Bolingbroke, Burke, Peel, Shaftesbury, Chamberlain, Macmillan, Butler, Tebbit and Thatcher, but also lesser known figures ofter ignored by other scholars.