Reddit reviews How to be a conservative

His book is pretty good too, also on Audible.

>IMO, conservative = social + fiscal + constitutional. And really in a cascading order.

It's a lot more general than that, actually. To paraphrase Roger Scruton, a conservative is someone who thinks that there are some things (could be in life, in family, in government, in finance, or whatever) that not only should be protected in general but that they need to be protected because there are always people who want to change those things for the worse.

edit-- so a "social conservative" is just someone who feels that way about most social issues.

I started to make one a while back but didn't get too far. There are just too many great books to choose from.

Classics 1950-1970

What is Conservatism?

The Conservative Mind

The Road to Serfdom

The Constitution of Liberty

Ideas Have Consequences

The Quest for Community

Economics in One Lesson

Capitalism and Freedom

In Defense of Freedom


Age of Reagan 1970-1990

The Conservative Intellectual Movement Since 1945

Modern Times

Knowledge and Decisions

A Conflict of Visions

Anarchy, State, and Utopia

Roots Of American Order


Modern Must Reads 1990-Today

The Clash of Civilizations

A History of the American People

The Vision of the Annointed

Intellectuals and Society

Illiberal Reformers

Restoring the Lost Constitution

How To Be A Conservative

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is always a good source/jumping off point. A more recent book is Scruton's How To Be a Conservative. There's also Oakeshott's On Being Conservative and Rationalism in Politics essays. Modern american conservatism imports some libertarianism, for that I would read some Hayek, econlib has a number of his essays and there's this essay that goes over his thoughts, and relates it to traditionalism. Hope that helps.

>Did I just read a fascist manifesto?

There is nothing in there that is not in or implied in Friedrich Hayek and Roger Scruton. If your head is so anarchistic you think a burkean Liberal and a liberal Burkean are fascist I won't be able to persuade you otherwise.

That said I think every thinking person can get something out of Scrution's How to be a Conservative. Even if the chapter 'the truth in nationalism' from which the above was partly drawn is not your cup of tea, it is still good to hear it, and chapters like 'the truth in capitalism', 'truth in socialism', 'the truth in environmentalism' or the 'truth in multiculturalism' might suit you better.

For works reflecting traditionalist conservative attitudes, I'd recommend "Ideas Have Consequences" by Richard Weaver and "The Abolition of Man" by C.S. Lewis. Also, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a pretty good critique of utopian ideology and in my opinion it's far more applicable to current society than Orwell's 1984 in its criticism of mindless consumerism and social conditioning.

For far-right perspectives I'd recommend anything by Julius Evola, especially Revolt Against the Modern World. A lot of the modern right's rhetoric about the decline of western society and to some extent its nihilism can be traced back to Evola's work, so he is essential reading if you really want to know more about the modern far right or alt right. As a warning, though, his extreme traditionalism will probably be off-putting.

As for U.K. relevant...hmm...I can at least recommend a great British conservative in Sir Roger Scruton. His "How to Be a Conservative" offers an outline of true conservative ideology and its applications as well as criticism of materialism, which is in my opinion essential to conservatism.