The Conservative Affirmation

Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1963. First edition. Octavo. Original cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Minor scuffing and edgewear to dust jacket with chips to head and tail of spine; two-inch closed tears to jacket hinges; bump to bottom of boards. Near-fine in a very good dust jacket, which is uncommon for this book.. First edition of Willmoore Kendall's (1909-1967) The Conservative Affirmation, which offers a collection of his most important essays and reviews on conservatism. Kendall was an influential leader in the founding of modern American conservatism-and he remains one of the movement's most interesting thinkers. Born in Oklahoma in 1909, Kendall graduated from high school at age thirteen, from the University of Oklahoma at age eighteen, and studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1932. Like other founding fathers within the movement, including James Burnham and Whittaker Chambers, he was an early Trotskyist, but Kendall would eventually disclaim Communism following his experience in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Kendall earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Illinois in 1940 before joining the Yale University faculty in 1947. Kendall spent fourteen querulous years as an instructor at Yale where he taught, among other future movement leaders, William F. Buckley Jr. Yale would ultimately pay Kendall a tidy sum to leave the institution in 1961, whereupon Kendall resigned and continued teaching at various other universities and acting as editor and contributor at National Review, which he founded with Buckley in 1955. Kendall's unorthodox conservatism, combined with his cantankerous personality, often placed him at odds with fellow National Review editors. Although Kendall was highly respected and authored numerous articles and reviews during his life, he did not write the "big book" that is often a prerequisite for marquee billing in modern movements. Nonetheless, Kendall's unique strand of conservatism, with its "Americanist" emphasis on country over doctrine or theory, remains important and destined for rediscovery and renewal. The Conservative Affirmation assembles a lifetime of Kendall's thought, including his distinctive emphasis on the importance of majoritarianism to the American political project. An excellent copy of an important milestone in the conservative movement-uncommon in this condition.