Volume 23, Number 1 · February 5, 1976
The New Conservatives
By Sheldon S. Wolin
Twilight of Authority
by Robert Nisbet
Oxford University Press, 287 pp., $10.95
"The American Commonwealth, 1976,"
Tenth Anniversary Issue
The Public Interest, No. 41 pp., $3.50
Robert Nisbet's Twilight of Authority is the most recent illustration of the perplexities of conservatism in America. The difficulty for theoretically minded conservatives is to find the appropriate categories for identifying continuities in a society so passionately dedicated to change that the only consistent conservatives may be the conservationists. The difficulties are compounded for the conservative when, like Nisbet, he perceives the society as radically corrupted in its culture and values, deranged in its institutions. Then the conservative is apt to find his conservatism an embarrassment. For, as Nisbet argues, nothing less than 'a fundamental change' can reverse the forces of decay.
Review, 5966 words
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