The survey is comprehensive, perhaps too much so, since Bramwell lists among the Immortals of Conservatism Ayn Rand and F. A. Hayek, who rejected that label. Likewise, his digressions into libertarianism also are inapt for his subject. He suffers most fundamentally from a muddled conception of conservatism, writing that the 20th-Century thinkers, "left behind a set of doctrines assumed to constitute the essence of American conservatism -- limited government, anti-utopianism, free-market economics, patriotism, traditional morality and religion, federalism, anticommunism, and belief in 'absolutes.'"

Compare this list with another drawn up by one of the seminal conservative thinkers Bramwell acknowledges, Russell Kirk:

1. belief in a transcendent moral order, based on divine intent or natural law
2. social continuity, with value given to the gradualness of change
3. prescription, faith in tradition and a consciousness of the limits of reason
4. prudence, a recognition of the complexity and fragility of society and the disastrous consequences of seeking to construct society anew
5. variety, a respect and appreciation for the differences in men and societies and a deep distrust of the uniformity of equality
6. imperfectability, the acceptance that the imperfect nature of man necessarily leads to an imperfect society and so the impossibility of utopia on earth

Bramwell's list represents a subtle shift from temperament to ideology and follows from what Daniel Larison identifies as Bramwell's conflation of American Conservatism and the American Right. Larison goes on to quote Chilton Williamson:

The primary distinction within the conservative tradition, almost by definition, is the most hoary one as well. It amounts to the difference between a conservatism founded uncompromisingly on eternal principles and the conservatism that appeals to historical context and the status quo, prudence, and pragmatism. The term “Rightist” commonly designates conservatives of the first division, while "conservative" denotes those belonging to the second.

As Williamson notes, this is an old distinction, so it is unclear why Bramwell would make such an elementary mistake. Except that for the purpose of this piece, conservatism might be broadly defined in order to account for its popular (mis)conception. He argues that popular dissemination is partly responsible for waning conservative thought; after all, we've won, conservatism is mainstream, and Leftism has been sufficiently debunked in the mind of the Right. There is no more heavy lifting to be done -- by anyone marginally aligned with with the American Right.

As a remedy, Bramwell looks to the esoteric corners of conservatism for regenerative deep thought: the libertarians at Critical Review, "evolutionary conservatives," and techno-skeptics. Bramwell notes, "the three schools are all either forthrightly or implicitly elitist. Like conservatives of the '40s and '50s, they do not expect that their ideas will be popular." And here we have the original thinking flourishing at the margins.

It seems self-evident that high-brow cannot also be popular (or populist), but I don't think it is true that all that is popular must also be low-brow. That is, conservatism is not doomed to be dumbed down. Middle-brow conservatives like me may be greatly turned-off by the Coulters, Limbaughs, and Hannities, but Bramwell may be trying to give us hope that there is more to edify us than the dusty tomes of the conservative canon or the insipidity of National Review.