*The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist's "astonishing" and "enthralling"
New York Times bestseller and Notable Book about how the Founders'
belief in natural rights created a great American political tradition
(Booklist) -- "easily one of the best books on American Conservatism
ever written" (Jonah Goldberg).
*** For more than four decades, George F. Will has attempted to discern
the principles of the Western political tradition and apply them to
America's civic life. Today, the stakes could hardly be higher. Vital
questions about the nature of man, of rights, of equality, of majority
rule are bubbling just beneath the surface of daily events in America.
The Founders' vision, articulated first in the Declaration of
Independence and carried out in the Constitution, gave the new republic
a framework for government unique in world history. Their beliefs in
natural rights, limited government, religious freedom, and in human
virtue and dignity ushered in two centuries of American prosperity. Now,
as Will shows, conservatism is under threat -- both from progressives
and elements inside the Republican Party. America has become an
administrative state, while destructive trends have overtaken family
life and higher education. Semi-autonomous executive agencies wield
essentially unaccountable power. Congress has failed in its duty to
exercise its legislative powers. And the executive branch has slipped
the Constitution's leash.
In the intellectual battle between the vision of Founding Fathers like
James Madison, who advanced the notion of natural rights that pre-exist
government, and the progressivism advanced by Woodrow Wilson, the
Founders have been losing. It's time to reverse America's political
fortunes.
Expansive, intellectually thrilling, and written with the erudite wit
that has made Will beloved by millions of readers, The Conservative
Sensibility is an extraordinary new book from one of America's most
celebrated political writers.
