At the end of this laudatory study, Person notes that when several leading conservatives were asked who the greatest progenitors of modern conservatism were, all named Russell Kirk (1918^-94), whose Conservative Mind (1953; 7th ed., 1986) was the foundational text of the post^-World War II conservative revival. Kirk, the son of a railroad engineer and a homemaker, wrote the book after quitting Michigan State in disgust with the university's promotion of sports and career training at the expense of the liberal arts curriculum. Subsequently, he pursued a career in writing and lecturing on politics, literature (including a major book on his friend T. S. Eliot), academic freedom, and economics. He also wrote supernatural fiction informed by his Catholic faith, married in middle age, fathered four daughters, and opened the large, old family house to a small platoon of students and people who needed shelter. Person surveys and analyzes Kirk's writings and thought with such enthusiasm and so appealingly that many readers may conclude that another conservative revival is devoutly to be wished for. --Ray Olson