Noël O'Sullivan is currently Research Professor of Political Philosophy at the

University of Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hu ...

. He studied at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

and

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. In 1967 he joined the Politics Department at Hull University. In 1992 he was given a personal chair in political philosophy at Hull. In his book on

conservatism Conservatism is a Philosophy of culture, cultural, Social philosophy, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, Convention (norm), customs, and Value (ethics and social science ...

O'Sullivan argued that "No single unifying idea is to be found in the English conservative tradition, except perhaps a certain scepticism and a pragmatic emphasis". The book also contains chapters on French and German conservatism. O'Sullivan argued that

fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...

was one example of the new revolutionary style of modern politics, of which

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

was also a manifestation. He also argued that fascism was an extreme example of the "activist" style of politics, which he defined as one that substitutes ideology for law, subordinates individuals to an all-embracing political order, has no intrinsic respect for constitutional forms, and rejects the existence of historic frontiers as a relevant determinant of its scope. This style of politics owed much, O'Sullivan claimed, to millenarianism and civic humanism. John Gray has called O'Sullivan a "genuine expert on conservative thought and a profound scholar".Noël O'Sullivan
at the

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website

Works

*''Conservatism'' (London: Littlehampton, 1976). *''Fascism'' (London: Dent, 1983). *''Santayana'' (London: Claridge, 1992). *''European Political Thought since 1945'' (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). *''The Place of Michael Oakeshott in Contemporary Western and Non-Western Thought'' (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2017).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:OSullivan, Noël Living people Academics of the University of Hull Alumni of the London School of Economics Philosophy academics English political philosophers Year of birth missing (living people)