J.L. Auspitz. “Individuality, Civility and Theory: The Philosophical Imagination of Michael Oakeshott,” Political Theory, no. 4 (1976): 261-294.      

Excerpt:

Even before the publication last year of his extraordinary new book there was sufficient evidence to argue that Michael Oakeshott was the most genuinely philosophical mind writing on political themes and one of the few living masters of the learned English essay. His work had already evinced the harmony of theme, style, method, allusion, and guiding passion that distinguishes the best theorizing on politics. Yet so little has his name been known among otherwise well-read Americans that those honoring his accomplishment have found themselves more often regarded as recherché right-wingers than as simple admirers of excellence in thought and letters. The neglect of Oakeshott in this country might be thought to stem from his nonchalance: his indifference to recruiting “disciples,” his modest list of full-length books, his instinct for avoiding combat, his nondoctrinaire brand of “conservatism,” his insistence that there are no practical “messages” or “lessons” to be extracted from his philosophy, or indeed from any philosophy worthy of the name.

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