Hayek’s early praise for Kirk carried substantial qualifications about classical liberalism

Evidence

When The Conservative Mind was fi rst published, he expressed admiration for the book and qualifi ed enthusiasm for its author. While he thought that the book was “a little uneven,” “much too long,” and excessively inclined to claim “for conservatism what really were the main contributions of classical liberalism,” he told Herbert Cornuelle of the Volker Fund that it was “really excellent in some parts and throughout erudite and readable.” — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 362

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the boundary work between conservatism and classical liberalism that defines the Mont Pèlerin project — relevant to the reader’s austerity/neoliberalism history.