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Roger Scruton

Confessions of a Heretic: Selected Essays Hardcover – March 28, 2017

by Roger Scruton (Author)

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Hard-hitting essays by acclaimed social commentator and philosopher Roger Scruton, guaranteed to provoke lively debate

A wide-ranging selection that includes essays on architecture and modern art, the environment, politics, and culture.

Each “confession” reveals aspects of the author’s thinking that his critics would probably have advised him to keep to himself. Roger Scruton challenges popular opinion on key aspects of our society: What can we do to protect Western values against Islamic extremism? How can we nurture real friendship in the digital age of social media and Facebook? How should we achieve a timely death against the advances of modern medicine? How should environmental policies be shaped by the government? This provocative collection seeks to answer the most pressing problems of our age.

Print length

208 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Notting Hill Editions
Publication date

March 28, 2017
Dimensions

4.69 x 0.65 x 7.47 inches
ISBN-10

1910749125
ISBN-13

978-1910749128
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Roger Scruton is that rarest of things: a first-rate philosopher who actually has a philosophy...one of the few intellectually authoritative voices in modern British conservatism.” —Jesse Norman, The Spectator

“Scruton is brilliant at the patient demolition, in sorrowful yet witty tones, of wobbly conceptual edifices.” —Steven Poole, The Guardian

About the Author

Roger Scruton is a philosopher, public commentator, broadcaster, and the author of more than forty books, including Notes from Underground, The Disappeared, and Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. He has specialized in aesthetics with particular attention to music and architecture, engages in contemporary political and cultural debates from the standpoint of a conservative thinker, and is well known as a powerful polemicist. Scruton is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the British Academy, and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Notting Hill Editions (March 28, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1910749125
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1910749128
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.69 x 0.65 x 7.47 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,160,584 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #578 in Media & Internet in Politics (Books)
- #916 in Philosophy Aesthetics
- #3,396 in Political Commentary & Opinion

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32 ratings

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James Hearne

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2018

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As described and quickly delivered.

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Luiz H.S.de Vasconcellos

Fundamental in the approach of the many issues challenging us all today.

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2017

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Once again, the great contemporary philosopher and essayist, Scruton, will estimulate your reflections on a variety of themes that are all to important to be left behind. And he is at his best in challenging you to travel alongside him, not commanding your attention and acceptance, but inviting you through fundaments, experience and dexterity in his Essays.

9 people found this helpful

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John L. Murphy

Good overview of his concerns and critiques

Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2017

I read this after reviewing "Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left," and I recognize that Roger Scruton's themes carry across his books and essays. Here, a dozen of the latter convey the gist of his wide-ranging concerns across architecture, music, art, dance, law, belief, social media, consumerism and branding, nature, death, and the contention between Islamic and Western mindsets.

He certainly has it out for the New York Review of Books and progressive cant, but as in his other works, his defense of traditional verities and communal solidarity against the top-down laws and rulings passed by a welfare state or a leftist-influenced administration forgives the excesses of capitalism while it seeks to counter meddling with the dignity we need to resist statist interference.

Scruton stimulates my thinking and challenges the methods with which I have been taught to view the world and our predicament. I disagree about, say, his stance denying animal rights (as I have when he's defended fox-hunting, smoking in pubs, and conscription), but his reasoned attempts to propose valid claims for why in our existential plight life provides opportunities for humanist resistance to the massive powers wielded by the free markets and theoretical democracies he champions show the complexity of his individualized moral approaches, pro and con for me.

Some material here is beyond me, as in my lack of musical expertise, when he discusses Strauss, which hobbles my progress. Scruton's formidably learned, and he addresses an intellectual audience that may rival George Steiner's when it comes to what the critic expects of his readership, in our less-educated time. Still, it's heartening that he soldiers on, and he challenges us mortals to keep pace.

Thus, coming to him with an open mind, I learn about Kantian and aesthetic perspectives on a markedly diverse set of circumstances. What I differ with, in his final piece on facing death in a time when the average human in an advanced nation is likely to live (in some form for better or worse) far longer than the span of when the Hippocratic Oath was codified, he counsels that his "benign" neglect brought about by drinking, smoking, and literally chewing the fat will bring about his demise in happier ways than a prolonged extension into senility and debility. Perhaps, but I wondered how, unless he's handsomely pensioned by the think-tanks and universities which have employed him, he will fare when he may depend on the same welfare state he so resents.

5 people found this helpful

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Stanley Turner

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2020

I have read several of Sir Roger’s books and have enjoyed them all, this one is no exception. Several of the essays I highlighted numerous passages, while others only a passage or two. The last essay on the issues within the Islamic community is highly informative. Highly recommended...SLT

Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2017

Scruton at his best. The best writer on conservative ideology today.

One person found this helpful

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Doktor X

Spitze

Reviewed in Germany on February 6, 2020

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Ganz tolles Buch, vom leider kürzlich verstorbenen Autor. Nahrung gegen den grün-sozialistischen Zeitgeist.

2 people found this helpful

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Miguel Cortes

Contra la corrección política

Reviewed in Spain on December 30, 2016

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Claro y valiente combate a la corrección política, la mayor amenaza para la libertad en Occidente, de la que, sin embargo, no es consciente nuestra sociedad

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ligneus

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on October 1, 2017

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Everyone should read Roger Scruton.

TJM

A concise yet wide ranging summary of Scruton's thought and reflections

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 14, 2016

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A well presented little volume, providing a number of accessible yet thought provoking essays on subjects including art & architecture, dancing, the middle east, and government. As the choice of quote on the front cover perhaps indicates, Scruton's discussion of 'governing rightly' makes some particularly interesting observations and will be relevant to people across the political spectrum. Not least to those conservatives or libertarians who seek only to undermine and weaken government and never to appreciate it's value - here Scruton's arguments could serve as a useful corrective to this position.

For those wanting more detail in particular subject areas there are many other works by Scruton that could be referred to, however as an overall summary and introduction I strongly recommend this.

36 people found this helpful

Rosa Gillibrand

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2016

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very interesting

2 people found this helpful

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Confessions of a Heretic: Selected Essays Hardcover – March 28, 2017

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