Buy used:

$19.99

Delivery Monday, January 20. Order within 3 hrs 54 mins

Or fastest delivery Friday, January 10

Used: Good | Details

Sold by grateful-goods

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Add to List

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (13) from $8.89

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Corey Robin

Follow

The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin Reprint Edition

by Corey Robin (Author)

4.1 184 ratings

See all formats and editions

There is a newer edition of this item:

The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
$19.91
(281)
In Stock

Late in life, William F. Buckley made a confession to Corey Robin. Capitalism is "boring," said the founding father of the American right. "Devoting your life to it," as conservatives do, "is horrifying if only because it's so repetitious. It's like sex." With this unlikely conversation began Robin's decade-long foray into the conservative mind. What is conservatism, and what's truly at stake for its proponents? If capitalism bores them, what excites them?

Tracing conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution, Robin argues that the right is fundamentally inspired by a hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market, others oppose it. Some criticize the state, others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality.

Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society--one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention has been critical to their success.

Written by a keen, highly regarded observer of the contemporary political scene, The Reactionary Mind ranges widely, from Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand. It advances the notion that all rightwing ideologies, from the eighteenth century through today, are historical improvisations on a theme: the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Reactionary Mind has emerged as one of the more influential political works of the last decade." --Washington Monthly

"This little book will continue to spark controversy, but that is not the reason to read it: it is a witty, erudite and opinionated account of one of the most significant movements of our times." --Times Higher Education

"Corey Robin's extraordinary collection, constantly fresh, continuously sharp, and always clear and eloquent, provides the only satisfactory philosophically coherent account of elite conservatism I have ever read. Then there's this bonus: his remarkably penetrating side inquiry into the notion of 'national security' as a taproot of America's contemporary abuse of democracy. It's all great, a model in the exercise of humane letters."--Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland

"This book is a fascinating exploration of a central idea: that conservatism is, at its heart, a reaction against democratic challenges, in public and private life, to hierarchies of power and status. Corey Robin leads us through a series of case studies over the last few centuries--from Hobbes to Ayn Rand, from Burke to Sarah Palin--showing the power of this idea by illuminating conservatives both sublime and ridiculous."--Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University

"Beautifully written, these essays deepen our understanding of why conservatism remains a powerful force in American politics."--Joyce Appleby, Professor Emerita of History, University of California-Los Angeles, and past president of the American Historical Association

"The Reactionary Mind is a wonderfully good read. It combines up-to-the-minute relevance with an eye to the intellectual history of conservatism in all its protean forms, going back as far as Hobbes, and taking in not only restrained and sentimental defenders of tradition such as Burke, but his more violent, proto-fascist contemporary Joseph de Maistre. Some readers will enjoy Corey Robin's dismantling of different recent thinkers--Barry Goldwater, Antonin Scalia, Irving Kristol; others will enjoy his demolition of Ayn Rand's intellectual pretensions. Some will be uncomfortable when they discover that those who too lightly endorse state violence, and even officially sanctioned torture, include some of their friends. That is one of the things that makes this such a good book."--Alan Ryan, Professor of Political Theory, Oxford University

"Robin is an engaging writer, and just the kind of broad-ranging public intellectual all too often missing in academic political science. ...Robin's arguments deserve widespread attention."--The New Republic

"This is a very readable romp through the evils of Conservatism."--The Guardian/Observer

"...an insightful book ... In a world where the old distinctions between left and right seem to be getting stale, Robin's book concentrates our minds on the deeper divisions."--The Daily

"It is a thoughtful, even-tempered sort of book. The old maid tendency that dominates liberal polemic in the U.S.--the shrieking, clutching at skirts, and jumping up on kitchen chairs that one gets from a Joe Nocera, a Maureen Dowd, or a Keith Olbermann--is quite absent. "--The American Conservative

"...the common opinion on the Left is that conservatives are fire-breathing idiots, who make up in heat what they lack in light. Robin's book is a welcome correction of this simplistic view and puts the debate where it ought to be: on the force and content of conservative ideas." --Dissent

Book Description

A strikingly bold claim about the right's political and intellectual foundations

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (March 1, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 290 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199959110
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199959112
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.6 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #989,283 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #184 in Political Ideologies
- #217 in Political History (Books)
- #3,888 in History & Theory of Politics

Customer Reviews:
4.1 184 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Corey Robin

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

184 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Review this product

Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking. They describe it as an easy read with good insights. However, some readers feel the essays are repetitive and incoherent. Opinions differ on the scholarly content - some find it comprehensive and well-documented, while others say it falls short in certain areas.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more

Readability Insight Scholarly content Essay content

24 customers mention "Readability"19 positive5 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They say it provides thoughtful insights about conservatism in a readable style. The overall thrust of the book is powerful for anyone seeking to understand the underlying dynamic.

"...This flaws aside, Robin's book is still entirely worth engaging with and the overall thrust of his thesis is, in my opinion, correct...." Read more

"...An entirely worthwhile read, with some very good insights that should have omitted the filler and been more worked up into a more focused, briefer..." Read more

"...Still, a very good, informative read overall." Read more

"...In a very readable style the author tells us that he seats "philosophers, statesmen, stockholders, scribblers, Catholics, fascists, evangelicals,..." Read more

23 customers mention "Insight"23 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking about conservatism from a left perspective. They describe it as an easy read with punchy, often funny, yet intellectually serious essays. The book helps trace conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin. Readers mention that the book is well-documented and interesting, though not as deep as they expected.

"...In this brilliant work, he narrates for us the long history of conservatism from its response to the French Revolution to its presence today...." Read more

"...While Robin's style is punchy, often funny, and yet intellectually serious, the nature of the essays themselves sometimes grated on me when reading..." Read more

"...An entirely worthwhile read, with some very good insights that should have omitted the filler and been more worked up into a more focused, briefer..." Read more

"...In fact, it's a pretty sympathetic portrait of conservatism that gets to the appeal of conservative philosophy, in particular its inherent..." Read more

13 customers mention "Scholarly content"6 positive7 negative

Customers have differing views on the book's scholarly content. Some find it comprehensive and well-documented, with an insightful introduction that provides the meat of the matter. Others feel it falls short in scholarly terms, is too philosophical, lacks proper context, and is academic and not the easiest read.

"...the book somewhat difficult to read – only because of its intellectual requirements...." Read more

"...omitted the filler and been more worked up into a more focused, briefer book." Read more

"...The eleven chapters seem almost miscellaneous and obscurely connected to any central theme...." Read more

"...The introduction is the strongest part of the book, in my opinion...." Read more

6 customers mention "Essay content"0 positive6 negative

Customers find the essays repetitive and incoherent. They describe the book as a collection of existing essays that were yoked together. The chapters seem miscellaneous and obscurely connected to any central theme.

"...disagreements with Robins, and second I found some of the essays slightly repetitive because they were written to be read individually so many..." Read more

"...not without interest, but ultimately is too scattered, obscure, repetitious, and inconclusive." Read more

"...It’s like that because of how the book is structurally more existing essays that were yoked together to serve a common thesis than a book that..." Read more

"...the book does suffer from some hefty prose, and it feels like a haphazard collection of snippets because it is in fact a sort of "greatest hits"..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Randolph Eck
An Excellent History of Conservatism
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2016
Verified Purchase
Cory Robin is an American political theorist, journalist, and professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College. In this brilliant work, he narrates for us the long history of conservatism from its response to the French Revolution to its presence today. He shows us how conservatism is an “ideology of reaction – originally against the French Revolution,” to the liberation movements of the sixties and seventies. The book is divided into two main sections: “Profiles in Reaction” and “Virtues of Violence.”

In the first section, after some introductory matter, we are introduced to the “first counterrevolutionary” Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher. In the next chapter we learn of Ayn Rand’s philosophy and how it resembles fascism. Subsequent chapters are a collection of reviews done on books or other related material. Chapter five profiles John Gray and Edward Luttwak, both conservative intellectuals who jumped ship to the left, and chapter six is a review of a book about Justice Antonin Scalia.

The second section discusses violence as it relates to political ideology. We are introduced to Ronald Reagan and the atrocities occurring in Guatemala at the time. Subsequent chapters discuss 9/11 and the end of the cold war; neocons, the Iraq war, and torture, the Lavender Scare, balance between freedom and security, terrorism, and much more. In all this we are treated to an encompassing overview of conservatism.

I found the book somewhat difficult to read – only because of its intellectual requirements. I was glad to have read this on my kindle, because there are many names of individuals presented whom I have never heard of. You would have to have had a decent exposure to history to know many of these people. In the Kindle, I simply had to highlight the name to get a Wikipedia entry on the person. I did this often. I also made significant use of the Kindle dictionary as well. But these are but a reflection of my intellectual shortcomings on the subject.

He concludes saying, “Modern conservatism came onto the scene of the twentieth century in order to defeat the great social movements of the left.” He thinks it has achieved its purpose. Excepting the gay rights movement, he feels “there are today no threatening social movements of the left.” So what’s next? Time will tell.

Read more

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report
C. Derick Varn
Excellent with a few important caveats:
Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2011
Verified Purchase
So much for the Utopianism of the left, we have to understand the inverse utopianism of the right? Indeed, The Reactionary Mind is a braid of linked essays divided into two related sections. The first section is the popular manifestation of conservative intellectual tradition, and the second is on the profound relationship between conservatism and violence.

First, a few caveats: there are a few points in which I have somewhat profound disagreements with Robins, and second I found some of the essays slightly repetitive because they were written to be read individually so many themes and points are hit upon blatantly by restatement because it would have been necessary in the original printing of these reviews and essays. While Robin's style is punchy, often funny, and yet intellectually serious, the nature of the essays themselves sometimes grated on me when reading the book as a whole in a few sittings. When I read the book as a collection of essays and ignored that Robin's essentially laid out his thesis in the introduction, I enjoyed these much more as reading qua reading.

Robin's thesis is highly illuminating: conservatism is not traditionalism of either capitalism or the ancient regime, although it is tied to both. Conservatism is the reactionary impulse to preserve real privileges and ways of life. Furthermore, conservatism maintains itself in the popular mode by mimicking left tactics to expand the circle of contempt: every man and every woman becomes lord of someone who they can take part in the oppression writ small. It's enough to make you wonder if perhaps David Brooks isn't really Calhoun with a friendly face.

Robin's does show, quite convincingly, there is a consistency to the Euro-American right since it emerged after the French revolution. It was fundamentally different from the soft traditionalism that supported the ancient regime before the French Revolution. Oddly, however, my favorite essay on the topic was the departure from that theme: the essay on Edward Luttwark and John Gray which Robin's partially disowns. Indeed, in this essay, Robins seem to hint that some of the values of pre-capitalist world are antithetical to the world conservatives have actually created and the abandonment of people like Luttwark and Gray betray that vision. Yet in opposition to modernity in entirety, their may support the welfare state and accept the cultural contradictions of capitalism, as even Daniel Bell acknowledged, they cannot come up with a coherent politics to support it.

Another theme touched upon by Robins, but only touched upon, primarily in his essays on the Anton Scalia and Ayn Rand, is that liberalism particularly has not been up to the job of actually opposing the right. Indeed, Scalia is allowed a rhetoric wit and scathing barbs in the court, but no liberal or moderate on the court returns the favor. In fact, when barbed Scalia is often thrown off his game. Furthermore, in the Ayn Rand section, "Garbage and Gravitas," Robins points out that often liberal and left readers of Ayn Rand have tried to give her more credit that she earns out of a want to show that large portion of the American public is enamored with someone as contemptuous as Rand. Yet as even a conservative friend of mine once said, "Rand is popular because she is elitism for the masses. It's that simple."

Another thing the second half of Robin's book is good for is an antidote to Andrew Sullivan and Sam Tanenhaus (as well as lesser known and more radical conservatives like Thomas Woods) that conservatism has traditionally been anti-war. While there is a conservative tradition that Robin's ignores that does live up to this standard-Jay Alfred Nock and the America First tradition is explicitly anti-war-the practice of the majority of conservatives since Burke has to glorify in violence as an expression of sublimity even if that violence actually leads to a more mechanized view of power, which is essentially what the conservatives wanted to avoid.

This, however, brings me to my critique of the book: to maintain a consistent view of conservatism in both sections, Robins did have to ignore parts of the conservative tradition and include other thinkers who reactionary credentials are questionable. As I have already noted, Robins does not comment on the traditional anti-war conservatives in America nor does he mention the anti-war conservatives who opposed George W. Bush and their libertarian allies. Indeed, one of the largest anti-war sites was run by primarily be paleo-conservatives and libertarians such as Justin Riamondo. Ron Paul got his street-cred, however questionable you find it, by opposing the warfare state. Furthermore, following Paxton, Robin's sees fascism as essentially conservative and enlists George Sorel's as part of his argument on the decadence cycle and the relationship to violence. I find this misleading, even in his so-called proto-fascist stage, Sorel's was essentially advocating anarchistic syndicalism and his relationship to both Marxism and anarchism is important. Fascism, while I think was a means of maintaining a form of capitalism which functioned like mercantilism, has much more than just a tactical similarity to left-wing thought. While idiots like Jonah Goldberg like to equate liberalism and fascism for incredibly facile reasons, fascism was not merely a defense of the ancient regime. It was an attempt to be both progressive and conservative at once: to ape socialism and keep a ruling class, but also to fundamentally produce a new society not rooted in old privileges. Also, Robins ignores the admittedly hyper-majority of the new far right such as radical traditionalism because these thinkers are not merely defending past privilege like Burke or even Reagan. They truly are inverse utopians.

This flaws aside, Robin's book is still entirely worth engaging with and the overall thrust of his thesis is, in my opinion, correct. Conservatism may be on its death throw because it has nothing really to oppose: leftism has been thrown out of the sphere and is only reemerging from its own ashes, New Labor and Democratic Leadership committee has become the current traditionalism of the liberal establishment unable to do anything new but ape the right and empower the business class, and so the right has become decadent and overreaching. Robin's end note is one of hope rooted in conservative fears of the decline of their own movement in a lack of real opposition. Indeed the view idea of conservatism implies it: one must be on the defense to be interested in conserving something. This is obviously no longer the case in for most conservatives.

Read more

35 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report

Top reviews from other countries

Bernie Latham
Read this book!
Reviewed in Canada on December 4, 2014
Verified Purchase
There are few, if any, books on modern conservatism as it has evolved from Burke on through what we now see going on in the US that are more explanatory than this one. If this is a subject that interests you or even if you have just a general interest in contemporary American politics, you really ought to read this book. Corey is a fine writer as well as being one hell of a scholar.

Read more
Report
rab
Well thought through, but would have benefited from being ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 27, 2015
Verified Purchase
Well thought through, but would have benefited from being written in a more engaging style as it is as dry as dust and somewhat "worthy".

Read more
Report

See more reviews

Image Unavailable

Follow the author