I posted about Yoram Hazony's earlier book on political theory, The Virtue of Nationalism, here. His latest one, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, came out in 2020.
I must again report that I haven't read either one but Hazony's most recent is the subject of a one-hour podcast at Mere Fidelity here. The three co-hosts interview Hazony. It would have helped if they had been more familiar with English constitutional and legal history as well as nineteenth-century American economic history. More precise (and concise) questions would also have helped. Hazony is a bit pugnacious and a dialectical format would have generated more light.
All of this should not deter folks from listening. I enjoyed the interview and learned what Hazony means by conservatism as distinguished from Enlightenment liberalism. Whether there are (or at least were) non-Enlightenment forms of liberalism went unresolved. I would like to know what Hazony thinks of Wilfred McClay's Land of Hope (my thoughts here) and East Coast Straussians generally as well as Charles Sellers's great work, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America 1815-1846. In short, does Hazony really think conservatism in America ended with the Federalists? And does he believe that Abraham Lincoln was a conservative, an Enlightenment liberal, or something else? Perhaps Colin Redemer will take a shot at interviewing Hazony on the Ad Fontes podcast.
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