What is culture? Why should we preserve it, and how? In this book, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends Western culture against its internal critics and external enemies, and argues that rumors of its death are seriously exaggerated. He shows our culture to be a continuing source of moral knowledge, and rebuts the fashionable sarcasm that sees it as nothing more than the useless legacy of “dead white European males.”

Ranging widely over the arts and philosophy, Scruton defends what Eliot called “the common pursuit of true judgement” against the dismissive attacks of the new academicians. In his striking account of music and its role in moral education, he defends the classical tradition as well as the American popular song, and points to the damage done to the psyche by the new forms of pop. He is robust in defense of traditional architecture and figurative painting; critical of the fashionable relativists, such as Michel Foucault, Edward Said and Richard Rorty; and urgent in his plea for our civilization, which more than ever stands in need of the self-knowledge and self-confidence that are the gift of serious culture.

Eminent writer and philosopher, Professor Sir Roger Scruton has for over three decades taught at institutions on both sides of the Atlantic including Birkbeck College, Boston University, and more recently, the University of Buckingham. He is an author of over forty books. In his work as a philosopher he has specialized in aesthetics with particular attention to music and architecture. He has written several works of fiction, as well as memoirs and essays on topics of general interest. He engages in contemporary political and cultural debates from the standpoint of a conservative thinker and is well known as a powerful polemicist. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the British Academy. He has been officially honoured by the Czech Republic, by the City of Plzen and by Virginia’s General Assembly. In 2004 he received the Ingersoll Weaver Prize for Scholarly Letters. In 2016 he was recipient of the Polish Lech Kaczynski Foundation’s Medal for Courage and Integrity, was awarded the Italian Masi Prize for the Culture of Wine in recognition of his book I Drink Therefore I Am (Bevo, dunque sono), and was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.