Conservative History Journal

Last week-end Tory Historian was wandering round Islington in London, carefully avoiding the very small trendy part of the old borough (there was, after all, a Fair Maid of Islington in the early eighteenth century and a Bailiff's Daughter of Islington mentioned in Percy's Reliques of 1765) and came across the statue of Sir Hugh Myddelton.Although the man is clearly a hero in that part of the world, there was very little information about...

Famously, Hayek maintained that he was not a conservative or a Conservative with a capital "c". He is, nevertheless, the man who has influenced a good deal of modern conservative thinking. Right now he is out of fashion with the Conservative Party but his time will come again.Hayek saw himself as a Whig or an old-fashioned Liberal, political categories that have been subsumed in other parties, notably the Conservative one of yesteryear.At...

Tory Historian was browsing through the Defense Visual Information Center's photographic archives - all freely available for use by the public - and came across this remarkable and moving picture.This was taken on May 13, 1945. The war in Europe had finished but the war in the Far East was still raging.The picture is that of the bombed out Coventry Cathedral where wounded US troops from nearby hospitals were attending a Mother's Day se...

Another dam' long screed, to misquote the Duke of Cumberland's comment to Edward Gibbon. Scribble, scribble.To continue the saga of the propaganda war waged after the Reichstag fire.The first aspect of the counter-offensive was “The Brown Book”, followed later on by “The Second Brown Book”. Münzenberg mobilized many of the West’s intellectuals whom he had already enmeshed in his network or the Münzenberg Trust as it was known, to support...

Here is an interesting question for all our readers? Who burnt down the Reichstag in 1933? Can you recall the name of Marinus Van der Lubbe, the somewhat crazed Dutchman, who actually set it on fire? And even if you can, do you not think that there was somebody behind it all? After all, it could not be just a lone lunatic?It would be interesting to know how many of those who read the above paragraph nodded and said: “Of course, Hitler ordered...

Tory Historian is a great admirer of Benjamin Disraeli, the presiding genius of political spin doctors, as the historian John Charmley once put it.Tory Historian is also fond of the odd quotation or two. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that this blog publishes the following quote from Dizzy: The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.One could never put it better onese...

Nothing like consulting great Tory thinkers. Tory Historian is back on li...

Tory Historian has been, unsurprisingly but only temporarily, flummoxed by modern technology, to wit, new blogger. Therefore, postings will be indirect, through Helen, while Tory Historian consults greater minds.With the help of the Great Doctor, normal service, we hope, will be resumed as soon as possible. In the meanwhile, look upon Helen's postings as those emanating from Tory Histori...

Certainly one can argue as one reader did very forcefully and Tory Historian somewhat less so, that Lincoln was not in any real sense a conservative. There can be no such argument about the fortieth President of the United States, Ronald Reagan.Tory Historian is fully aware that a couple of Reagan quotes went up on this blog very recently but this story is not a very well known one and is worth repeating.It comes from a book already mentioned...

One thing leads to another as I have had occasion to mention. Another article led me to quote Abraham Lincoln’s famous saying about not being able to fool all of the people all of the time – a saying that all politicians should repeat to themselves every day – and to find a few other rather good ones.It is, of course, debatable whether Lincoln was a conservative. The conclusion one comes to is much like the conclusion one comes to on most...