Conservatism is not much given to theorising, but its hijacking by ultra-liberalism from one direction, and national populism from another, is precipitating some soul- searching. Edmund Fawcett’s Conservatism: The Fight for a Tradition (Princeton University Press, £30; Tablet price £27) follows on from his acclaimed Liberalism, and covers roughly the same time frame (1830 to the present) and geography (UK, US, France, Germany). Written by a left-wing liberal, it seeks to understand how it is that conservatism has come to dominate a liberal modernity it originally hated and fought.