The history of conservatism is rich and varied; there are thoughtful histories of it to be written. This book, sadly, is not one of them. Its title promises great things: a discussion of the “mind” of conservatives, the discovery that it is “reactionary,” and a sweep that extends from the French Revolution to today's headlines. In reality, this is a collection of recycled essays and book reviews (all of the dozen pieces are previously published, including three each from the London Review of Books and the Nation), each focusing on one or more conservative figures or ideas. But a common theme does not make for coherence and this volume demonstrates the pitfalls of this type of collection.

In the introduction, as one might expect, Robin tries to establish some baseline claims that will be pursued in the volume. He defines conservatism as “a meditation on—and theoretical rendition of—the felt experience of having power, seeing it threatened, and trying to win it back” (4). Later, he adds that the “priority of conservative political argument has been the maintenance of private regimes of power—even at the cost of the strength and integrity of the state” (15). Thus conservatism is about “power besieged and power protected” (28). Power, threat, and loss—these themes should run through the book's depiction of conservatism as a phenomenon. But the presentation is uneven and some of the essays have aged badly. The introduction's promises are not kept.

The author's assumptions mean that what moves history are the characteristic interests and causes of the Left, in particular breaking up the power structures of traditional elites. By contrast, conservatism, like William F. Buckley, “stands athwart history, yelling Stop”—it is romantic, quixotic, and a bit foolish. This may be neither untrue nor ungenerous toward the conservative movement or those who embody it, but it bears examination. The great failing of this book is that it does not make that inquiry. “What is a conservative?” is an interesting question. When Michael Oakeshott, who is frequently referenced in the book, answered that conservatism was a disposition, he also claimed that it could be spoken of in terms of “general principles,” but that he would not do so in that essay. But Oakeshott considered himself a conservative, and we might (although perhaps we should not) forgive its friends for not defining themselves. Its critics, like Mr. Robin, owe it to their readers to explain things more clearly. If conservatism is a disposition or matter of taste, as Robin sometimes says, can we even argue about it, much less say that it is wrong or foolish?

Chapter 7 is an example of a further difficulty with Robin's approach. It opens with the story of Ronald Reagan meeting the president of Guatemala. Soon, however, it begins telling the story of the 1954 overthrow of a previous Guatemalan president, and then goes back to the first emergence of democracy in Central America after World War II. This narrative demonstrates that Reagan's actions were the concluding part of a larger Cold War–era US policy of supplying training and armaments to the Guatemalan armed forces. Even if we can accept Eisenhower and Nixon as conservatives (much less reactionaries), can that claim be made about Kennedy or Johnson? Jimmy Carter? One might legitimately be critical of America's Central America policy, or even describe it as a conservative policy. But Robin's argument makes it difficult to sustain the idea that the “reactionary mind” is a matter of disposition rather than policy or some other thing. What is more, “reactionary” ceases to be a term of distinction if it applies to everyone in the American foreign policy establishment. What results is a message that is poorly defined and badly supported.

Conservatism, or reaction, appear in this book as characteristics of those who have power and who wish to keep it, along with the satisfactions of having it. Yet this analysis seems vulnerable to the observation that at any given time, yesterday's victors are today's conservatives. How does this help us distinguish a characteristically “reactionary mind”? It ought to be tolerably clear from the root of “conservative” that he is one who wishes to “conserve.” Humans want to keep what they have, especially things they have worked or fought for, but this is not a new observation. It is hard not to read these essays and respond: “so what?”

Anyone who has served for a time in an institution like a university will acknowledge the irrefutable power of the sentence “That is the way we have always done it.” What accounts for its power? It is not an argument. It does not advance reasons. It claims a fact which is a perfect, final, and unappealable ground of action (or, more often, inaction). In Robin's account, some version of this sentence seems to lie at the bottom of conservative thinking—or perhaps a key component of conservatism is its wariness of abstractions and generalizations, or its protean ability to remake itself without acknowledging the new elements. Any of these would be worth investigating, but no such investigation is taken up here. I do not say that Robin is wrong about any of this or about his critiques of American policy. But I think he needs to make an argument for his definitions, to test his thesis against objections, and weigh a larger body of evidence than he is able to do in the book-review format of most of the essays here. This may be tolerable journalism, but it falls short of the demands of scholarship. There are other, better books about conservatism. This one leaves the reader frustrated and unconvinced. It is a missed opportunity.