Willmoore Kendall: Maverick of American Conservatives provides the first book-length study of a man long regarded as a Founding Father of American Intellectual Conservatism. This edited collection brings together a diverse range of perspectives on Kendall’s life and work and places the post-World War II political theorist in the context of modern American conservatism. Far from providing a monolithic view of Kendall’s thought, the contributions illuminate an unconventional, often contradictory, thinker. It traces the development of Kendall’s body of political thought from his early years in Oxford, through his work on John Locke, to the later speculation that produced The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition , and the influence of Leo Strauss on Willmoore Kendall’s later work.