Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton, a New Atlantis contributing editor, was a philosopher, writer, and public commentator widely known for his work on aesthetics and culture and for his defense of conservative political philosophy. He was also a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Mr. Scruton was the author of some three dozen books, ranging in subject matter from academic works on aesthetics, art, and music to popular accounts of conservatism, utopianism, and political philosophy to personal reflections on drinking wine and hunting.

A prolific essayist, Mr. Scruton regularly wrote columns and essays for such publications as The New Statesman, The American Spectator, and The New Criterion. He was the editor of The Salisbury Review from its founding in 1982 until 2001. He was also the author of several novels and short stories, and composed two operas (The Minister and Violet).

Mr. Scruton taught philosophy and aesthetics at Princeton, Oxford, the University of St. Andrews, Boston University, and Birkbeck College. He was a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a research fellow at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. In 2011, Mr. Scruton delivered the Stanton Lectures at the Divinity School at the University of Cambridge. In 2010, he delivered the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews. In 2009, he wrote and narrated an acclaimed hour-long BBC documentary, Why Beauty Matters.