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The Politics of Prudence
30th Anniversary Edition with a new introduction by Michael Federici.
Conservatives are guided by prudence. So taught Russell Kirk (1918–1994), one of the founding fathers of American conservatism. If the tradition of prudential politics has fallen on hard times, its comeback might well begin in the pages of this wise book. An understanding of prudence as practical wisdom, the capacity of choosing the right means to attain worthy ends, is much needed in our time. It is the virtue most associated with the statesman.
Distinguishing political prudence from ideology, Kirk examines ten principles, events, books, and thinkers that have shaped the conservative mind and heart. The final chapter examines the shortcomings of democracy throughout the world and the need for representative government conducted by temperate and thoughtful men and women. In an eloquent epilogue, Kirk calls the rising generation to the defense of order—both the moral order and the social order, the order of the soul and the order of society—against the enemies of justice, freedom, and a high culture.
Reflecting decades of learning and practical experience, this lucid book is Kirk's bequest to the young men and women of today, an instruction manual for redeeming the time.
Conservatives are guided by prudence. So taught Russell Kirk (1918–1994), one of the founding fathers of American conservatism. If the tradition of prudential politics has fallen on hard times, its comeback might well begin in the pages of this wise book. An understanding of prudence as practical wisdom, the capacity of choosing the right means to attain worthy ends, is much needed in our time. It is the virtue most associated with the statesman.
Distinguishing political prudence from ideology, Kirk examines ten principles, events, books, and thinkers that have shaped the conservative mind and heart. The final chapter examines the shortcomings of democracy throughout the world and the need for representative government conducted by temperate and thoughtful men and women. In an eloquent epilogue, Kirk calls the rising generation to the defense of order—both the moral order and the social order, the order of the soul and the order of society—against the enemies of justice, freedom, and a high culture.
Reflecting decades of learning and practical experience, this lucid book is Kirk's bequest to the young men and women of today, an instruction manual for redeeming the time.
- GenresPolitics
366 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 3, 2023
8 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Russell Kirk
185 books305 followersFor more than forty years, Russell Kirk was in the thick of the intellectual controversies of his time. He is the author of some thirty-two books, hundreds of periodical essays, and many short stories. Both Time and Newsweek have described him as one of America’s leading thinkers, and The New York Times acknowledged the scale of his influence when in 1998 it wrote that Kirk’s 1953 book The Conservative Mind “gave American conservatives an identity and a genealogy and catalyzed the postwar movement.”
Dr. Kirk wrote and spoke on modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes. He addressed audiences on hundreds of American campuses and appeared often on television and radio.
He edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman and was founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age. He contributed articles to numerous serious periodicals on either side of the Atlantic. For a quarter of a century he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published, through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Over the years he contributed to more than a hundred serious periodicals in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland, among them Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Fortune, Humanitas, The Contemporary Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, World Review, Crisis, History Today, Policy Review, Commonweal, Kenyon Review, The Review of Politics, and The World and I.
He is the only American to hold the highest arts degree (earned) of the senior Scottish university—doctor of letters of St. Andrews. He received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his master’s degree from Duke University. He received honorary doctorates from twelve American universities and colleges.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a senior fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Constitutional Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland. The Christopher Award was conferred upon him for his book Eliot and His Age, and he received the Ann Radcliffe Award of the Count Dracula Society for his Gothic Fiction. The Third World Fantasy Convention gave him its award for best short fiction for his short story, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding.” In 1984 he received the Weaver Award of the Ingersoll Prizes for his scholarly writing. For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori Prize for historical writing.
More than a million copies of Kirk’s books have been sold, and several have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages. His second book, The Conservative Mind (1953), is one of the most widely reviewed and discussed studies of political ideas in this century and has gone through seven editions. Seventeen of his books are in print at present, and he has written prefaces to many other books, contributed essays to them, or edited them.
Dr. Kirk debated with such well-known speakers as Norman Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, Carey McWilliams, John Roche, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Harrington, Max Lerner, Michael Novak, Sidney Lens, William Kunstler, Hubert Humphrey, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Clifford Case, Ayn Rand, Eugene McCarthy, Leonard Weinglass, Louis Lomax, Harold Taylor, Clark Kerr, Saul Alinsky, Staughton Lynd, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, and Tom Hayden. Several of his public lectures have been broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.
Among Kirk’s literary and scholarly friends were T. S. Eliot, Roy Campbell, Wyndham Lewis, Donald Davidson, George Scott-Moncrieff, Richard Weaver, Max Picard, Ray Bradbury, Bernard Iddings Bell, Paul Roche, James McAuley, Thomas Howard, Wilhem Roepke, Robert Speaight
Dr. Kirk wrote and spoke on modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes. He addressed audiences on hundreds of American campuses and appeared often on television and radio.
He edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman and was founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age. He contributed articles to numerous serious periodicals on either side of the Atlantic. For a quarter of a century he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published, through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Over the years he contributed to more than a hundred serious periodicals in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland, among them Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Fortune, Humanitas, The Contemporary Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, World Review, Crisis, History Today, Policy Review, Commonweal, Kenyon Review, The Review of Politics, and The World and I.
He is the only American to hold the highest arts degree (earned) of the senior Scottish university—doctor of letters of St. Andrews. He received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his master’s degree from Duke University. He received honorary doctorates from twelve American universities and colleges.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a senior fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Constitutional Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland. The Christopher Award was conferred upon him for his book Eliot and His Age, and he received the Ann Radcliffe Award of the Count Dracula Society for his Gothic Fiction. The Third World Fantasy Convention gave him its award for best short fiction for his short story, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding.” In 1984 he received the Weaver Award of the Ingersoll Prizes for his scholarly writing. For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori Prize for historical writing.
More than a million copies of Kirk’s books have been sold, and several have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages. His second book, The Conservative Mind (1953), is one of the most widely reviewed and discussed studies of political ideas in this century and has gone through seven editions. Seventeen of his books are in print at present, and he has written prefaces to many other books, contributed essays to them, or edited them.
Dr. Kirk debated with such well-known speakers as Norman Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, Carey McWilliams, John Roche, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Harrington, Max Lerner, Michael Novak, Sidney Lens, William Kunstler, Hubert Humphrey, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Clifford Case, Ayn Rand, Eugene McCarthy, Leonard Weinglass, Louis Lomax, Harold Taylor, Clark Kerr, Saul Alinsky, Staughton Lynd, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, and Tom Hayden. Several of his public lectures have been broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.
Among Kirk’s literary and scholarly friends were T. S. Eliot, Roy Campbell, Wyndham Lewis, Donald Davidson, George Scott-Moncrieff, Richard Weaver, Max Picard, Ray Bradbury, Bernard Iddings Bell, Paul Roche, James McAuley, Thomas Howard, Wilhem Roepke, Robert Speaight
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 13, 2025
I only read this over Kirk’s more famous books because this is what my library had in stock as an ebook. I don’t regret it though.
As someone who isn’t (at least primarily) a conservative, I found The Politics of Prudence to be an interesting collection of essays that shed light on the typical “paleoconservative” worldview.
There are some essays here that are very out of place or aged rather poorly. One example is Kirk’s takedown of libertarianism, which was pretty baffling. Saying that there are more gay people among libertarians is a very 20th-century thing to bring up, and that essay consisted of many mischaracterizations of the ideology. Speaking of ideology, another strange part is his constant insistence of rejecting that conservatism is an ideology. I can kind of see where that’s coming from, but it seems like more of a rhetorical twist of semantics rather than what conservatism truly is to most people.
When it comes to out of place essays, the one on T. S. Eliot comes to mind. Sure, it makes sense in the context of his other works, but for someone new and reading from the 21st century, it seems almost random.
That being said, on the whole, there are many things to like here. The writing style is refined to the point where it’s almost pompous (referring to himself as “your servant” is very funny), and I feel a general sentiment of condescension from the archaic sensibilities of the prose. (This is a book where you might need to look up the various Biblical/Classical words for Hell.) Then again, I fully understand that this stems from a different aesthetic sentimentality I possess by the virtue of my Zoomer birth, so ngl it’s fine by me. Helps that much of the content is conveyed clearly, and better yet, optimistically. This optimism is in fact the greatest thing about this book; it’s hard to find books broaching this topic that have some hope for the future. Maybe hope was easier in 1992.
As someone who isn’t (at least primarily) a conservative, I found The Politics of Prudence to be an interesting collection of essays that shed light on the typical “paleoconservative” worldview.
There are some essays here that are very out of place or aged rather poorly. One example is Kirk’s takedown of libertarianism, which was pretty baffling. Saying that there are more gay people among libertarians is a very 20th-century thing to bring up, and that essay consisted of many mischaracterizations of the ideology. Speaking of ideology, another strange part is his constant insistence of rejecting that conservatism is an ideology. I can kind of see where that’s coming from, but it seems like more of a rhetorical twist of semantics rather than what conservatism truly is to most people.
When it comes to out of place essays, the one on T. S. Eliot comes to mind. Sure, it makes sense in the context of his other works, but for someone new and reading from the 21st century, it seems almost random.
That being said, on the whole, there are many things to like here. The writing style is refined to the point where it’s almost pompous (referring to himself as “your servant” is very funny), and I feel a general sentiment of condescension from the archaic sensibilities of the prose. (This is a book where you might need to look up the various Biblical/Classical words for Hell.) Then again, I fully understand that this stems from a different aesthetic sentimentality I possess by the virtue of my Zoomer birth, so ngl it’s fine by me. Helps that much of the content is conveyed clearly, and better yet, optimistically. This optimism is in fact the greatest thing about this book; it’s hard to find books broaching this topic that have some hope for the future. Maybe hope was easier in 1992.
Displaying 1 of 1 review