The new issue of the Claremont Review of Books is out, and Charles Kesler’s, short essay to introduce the issue, "Bookless in America," is very much worth reading. John Kenneth Galbraith to the contrary, conservatism is not bookless in America. And yet, Kesler warns us, we have to be careful. It is one thing growing up on Hayek, Buckley, et al, and participating in the epic battles with liberalism, and another watching Bill O’Reilly. "Nonetheless, the danger of taking our precepts for granted—of forgetting the thinkers and arguments that made possible the epic confrontation with liberalism—grows greater as American conservatism moves farther away from its own founding age. We need to recur to first principles if we are not to lose sight of our purposes."