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Ideologies of Conservatism: Conservative Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century. E. H. H. Green. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 309. $39.95 (cloth).
In British politics the twentieth century was "the Conservative century." The Tories were in office for sixty-eight years (albeit occasionally in coalitions) and on only four occasions suffered heavy defeats at general elections. Recently, scholars such as Richard Shannon, John Ramsden and Green himself have contributed to an account of these decades of dominance. In the process, Green argues in this erudite work, Conservative thought has been neglected. In part this is explicable by reference to the Tories' own self-image as "non-ideological" (at least before Thatcher) but the party has nonetheless possessed "an ideological map of the world which enables them to identify objects of approval and disapproval" (3). Indeed, if one goes beyond the examination of a small number of "canonical" texts to lesser publications, speeches and correspondence, then "the Conservatives' engagement with ideas is clear, rich, varied, and extensive" (14). Rather than Thatcherism heralding a new formal philosophical coherence, "the history of the Conservative party in the twentieth century is steeped in ideological dispute" (14). Such debates Green explores in a series of "cross-sectional" essays that sample Conservative ideological debate at key points throughout the century.
The first reexamines the career of Arthur Balfour, particularly in relation to his views on tariff reform. In electoral terms Balfour was the most unsuccessful Conservative leader of the century but, contrary to conventional wisdom, Green argues that rather than ineffectual and half-hearted, Balfour's position on tariff reform, and particularly his concept of "retaliation," explored in his Economic Notes on Insular Free Trade (1904), was deeply and sincerely held.
The essay...