Did You Ever See a Dream Walking American Conservatie Thought in the Twentieth Century Hardcover – January 1, 1970

A classic of conservative opinion from the master.

Wonderful book edited by William F Buckley,Jr., With great contributions by some very important figures in the movement, The book is a classic and must-read as there are many divergent and dare I say diverse beliefs on the Right. PIcked up My Copy(was a gift for me by my sibiling) at The Strand Ironically and Love it. Brilliant work as is typical of WFB. Incise, precise and straight to the point.

I was thrilled to read much of this in 1970, when it came out. I was a junior in High School, and enjoyed everything Buckley wrote. This book is the primer from after Russell Kirk's time of American Conservatism. It even has an essay by Garry Wills, as fine as anything he has written on political philosophy. Russell Kirk is in this, as well as who's who of the best Conservative writers. The finest British Conservative Michael Oakshott, the excellent Hugh Kenner, Whittaker Chambers who wrote Witness, Albert Jay Nock and Fr. John Courtney Murray. Buckley's introduction is outstanding and includes Chambers' brilliant destruction of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. This is a wonderful read.

A few essays here are good (esp. one on economics) but on the whole this volume is rather weak. The reader experiences a wide range of essayists and topics, rather than just the best ones. This book really suffers from its intellectualism and its eclecticism: to wit, one essay had to do with conservatism in architecture or urban planning -- it was such a horrible mishmash of nothing that I forget what exactly it was about. Often I thought of the term "ivory towers", which is something I usually associate more with liberalism.Buckley can be a very good writer, but here he merely selects the works of others. The result is mixed and more often bad than good.

This is an anthology of articles defining Conservatism in America in modern times. Chapters include the limitations of the state, the social order (race, education, religion), and the impact of social science. Somewhat outdated now, but in defining what Conservatism is all about, it's still pretty strong.