This study focuses on the issue of Russian conservatism at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The author works in a multifaceted way with Alan Sked's work on British conservatism in the early 19th century and points out that the conclusions which Sked outlined for the British setting can also to some extent be applied elsewhere, specifically to the setting of the Russian Empire.
This study deals with the question of responses to the work of the founder and leading representative of British conservative thought Edmund Burke. It focuses in particular on political theorists who have not only considered Burke's work but have also managed to view their responses to it within the continuity of a tradition stretching back to the beginnings of political thought with Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas. The author therefore concentrates on figures such as Leo Strauss, Harvey C. Mansfield and Alasdair MacIntyre.