Douglas Murray Douglas Murray

‘A liberal mugged by reality’

Douglas Murray celebrates the life of Irving Kristol, one of the most influential conservative thinkers of the postwar era, who died last week

issue 26 September 2009

Irving Kristol didn’t coin the term ‘neoconservative’ but he was the first person to run with it. Although it was originally intended as an insult towards those alleged to have abandoned their initial ‘liberalism’, Kristol wasn’t bothered with quibbling. ‘It usually makes no sense… to argue over nomenclature,’ he once said.

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