Oakeshott, Modernity, and Cold War Liberalism

Abstract

Increasingly recognized as a twentieth-century thinker of the first rank, Michael Oakeshott nevertheless still resists easy categorization. And this is so despite the fact that he has long been recognized as a notable figure in several related intellectual disciplines including the history of ideas, the philosophy of history, and—especially—political philosophy. Indeed, until recently, Oakeshott has often been labelled as a thinker sui generis, difficult to classify and to come to terms with, and even sometimes dismissed as an uncompromising eccentric. Why is this?