Commissioned Book Review: Francesco Giubilei, The History of European Conservative Thought
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920942452 |
| Author | Daniel Pitt |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Reviews |
Political Studies Review
2020, Vol. 18(4) NP5 –NP6
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
942452PSW0010.1177/1478929920942452Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2020
Commissioned Book Review
The History of European Conservative
Thought by Francesco Giubilei. Washington,
DC: Regnery Publishing, 2019. 256 pp., £23.99
(Hardcover), ISBN 9781621579090
It is certainly an ambitious enterprise to write a
single volume book that provides a satisfactory
account of the history of European conserva-
tive thought. Nevertheless, Francesco Giubilei
has managed to write a book that is perceptive,
lucid and germane and it should be read by
both scholars and students of conservative
thought. This book will also be of interest to
those who study the history of ideas and the
history of European politics. Giubilei is an
Italian Professor at the University G. Fortunato
of Benevento as well as a columnist and pub-
lisher. The History of European Conservative
Thought was originally published in Italian and
it has subsequently been translated into English
by Rachel Stone.
The main aim of the book is to ‘highlight
distinctions between conservatism and the
other schools of thought’ (p. xiii). The distinc-
tions were made betwixt conservatism, tradi-
tionalism, liberalism, reactionism and
libertarianism. As conservatism and libertari-
anism are commonly confused with one
another or even used in the American context
as synonyms, the demarcation in the book is
one of the main contributions to the conserva-
tive literature. Giubilei utilises a cultural lens
rather than a purely political one. This means
that the book does not analyse conservatism as
a political practice or policies of conservative
parties per se. The historical scope of The
History of European Conservative Thought is
from the French Revolution to the modern day
and it covers over 90 conservative thinkers,
including novelists, playwrights and poets.
Eminent conservative thinkers such as G.K.
Chesterton and Sir Roger Scruton as well as
lesser known thinkers such as Ennio Flaiano
and Giovanni Volpe are included in the book.
As the core focus is on traditional conserva-
tism, thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek and
Alexis de Tocqueville are only drawn upon to
demarcate the parameters of conservative
thought by contrasting it with liberal thought.
In the conservative literature, according to
Andrew Vincent, there have been three broad
approaches to the study of conservatism. These
are (1) the historical nation state, (2) chrono-
logical and (3) conceptual approaches. The
History of European Conservative Thought has
utilised all three approaches to varying degrees.
The first section of the book takes a conceptual
approach and is organised around the princi-
ples and historical origins of conservatism.
This is a useful foundation and provides the
theoretical framework for the book. It also aids
the reader in understanding what conservatism
is and what it is not, before moving onto a his-
torical nation state approach. Nevertheless, the
section does leave questions unanswered. For
example, the question ‘is conservatism an ide-
ology?’ is asked. Michael Oakeshott is drawn
on to argue that conservatism is a disposition,
Russell Kirk is utilised to argue that conserva-
tism is not an ideology, but an anti-ideology
and Robert Nisbet’s work is used to argue that
conservatism is an ideology. The sketching of
this debate provides the reader with a sound
introduction to the various views of conserva-
tive scholars on this question, but the question
is not explicitly answered by Giubilei himself.
Therefore, the question is left open without a
conclusion.
The second section of the book, which is
the longest section, provides intellectual bio-
graphical portraits of conservative thinkers
within their historical, national and suprana-
tional contexts. The portraits are based on a
chronological timeline, and the events and
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