Burke, E, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1986), London, Penguin ed. The classic exposition of the conservatism based on a critique of liberal rationalism. However, it must be read as a product of the strained circumstances of the early 1790s; its arguments are compatible with the moderate reformist approach which the author himself adopted in his political career.

Dorey, P, British Conservatism: the Politics and Philosophy of Inequality (2011), I.B Tauris. A rigorously researched critique of the beliefs associated with the British Conservative Party. Chapter 2 argues that the Conservative Party long ago ceased to be recognisably 'conservative' in its ideological perspective, but Dorey's book is the best source for anyone who disagrees with that thesis.

Gray, J, 'The Undoing of conservatism', in Enlightenment’s Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age, (2011), Routledge, pp. 89-120. A merciless critique of so-called 'modern conservatism' and the practical impact of its championship of unrestrained capitalism, which is all the more effective because the author was at one time sympathetic to its ‘Thatcherite’ variant in Britain.

Honderich, T, Conservatism, (1990), Hamish Hamilton. A critique of ‘modern conservatism’ from the left that exemplifies the tendency to accept self-styled ‘conservatives’ at their own evaluation without exploring the obvious discrepancy between conservative principles and the premises of laissez-faire liberalism.

O'Hara, K (2011), Conservatism, Reaktion Books. A very thoughtful account which tries to distinguish conservatism from varieties of neo-liberalism, but which (unlike Gray) still attempts to establish a link between 'conservatism', as an ideology, and the practice of the British Conservative Party.

Among a wide range of US websites which purport to express 'conservative' views, http://www.theamericanconservative.com  offers an informative contrast to the interpretation of the ideology advanced in this chapter. A similar comparison can be made in relation to the output of the UK's Salisbury Review (http://salisburyreview.com/).