Conservatisms in an Age of Revolutions: The United States in an Atlantic World

The Conservatism in an Age of Revolution project examines how conservatism emerged in the US and its Atlantic neighbours over the course of the nineteenth century. Funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant, it runs for three years from September 2024.

In situating early conservatism in its historical context, the project sets out from the empirical observation that the term 'conservatism' appeared simultaneously in the Unites States, Britain, and Latin America in the 1830s and '40s. In the United States, against a background of political instability at home and revolutionary movements abroad, it became a term of legitimation, invoked even by political actors advocating radical change. The project therefore seeks to understand conservatism as a distinct concept, rather than a mere antithesis to 'liberalism' or 'progressivism'.

The project pursues three principal objectives. First, to investigate how political goals and practices were defined as conservative in the Atlantic world of the 1830s and '40s, and how these interacted with liberal ideas and ambitions. Second, to use this transnational approach to clarify why the language of conservatism was so salient in the nineteenth-century United States. Third, to achieve a better understanding of the origins of late-nineteenth century conservative regimes, including their roots in liberal and radical movements. Our Research Fellow, Dr Gwion Wyn Jones, has published an accessible discussion of the language of conservatism for Engelsberg Ideas, “The History of Conservatism is a History of Crisis".

The project is led by Professor Adam Smith as Principal Investigator, with  Dr Gwion Wyn Jones and Dr Robin Bates as Research Fellows. Professor Mark Power Smith (University of Florida) co-created the project with Professor Smith and remains and associate member of the Project Team. 

Publications

The project team have so far completed two of the planned five outputs:

• Mark Power Smith, “The Crisis of Household Government and the Rise of Democratic Conservatism before the American Civil War”, (forthcoming in the Journal of the Civil War Era)
• Gwion Wyn Jones, “Conservatism in the Reconstruction-Era United States, 1865-1877,” (forthcoming in Civil War History)

The Oxford team is working with colleagues from ten institutions in four countries to produce a collaborative volume that will explore the emergence of conservatism as a political language in Britain, the Low Countries and Germany, Mexico, the USA and Canada. It is tentatively entitled “Languages of Conservatism in the Atlantic World, c1830-1900”.

Since its foundation in 1925, the Leverhulme Trust has provided grants and scholarships for research and education, funding research projects, fellowships, studentships, bursaries and prizes; it operates across all the academic disciplines, the intention being to support talented individuals as they realise their personal vision in research and professional training. Today, it is one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing approximately £100 million a year. For more information about the Trust, please visit www.leverhulme.ac.uk and follow the Trust on Twitter/X @LeverhulmeTrust.