The diversity of American conservatism would astound those pundits, politicians, and critics who believe conservatism is a rigid ideology aimed at privileging the wealthy (and the white). Peter Kolozi’s new book Conservatives Against Capitalism: From the Industrial Revolution to Globalization showcases a conservatism uncomfortable with free-market capitalism -- which adherents see as revolutionary and disruptive of tradition -- and traces its origins from the antebellum South, to the election of Donald Trump, profiling a remarkable coterie of thinkers who rejected the tenets of capitalism and urged a conservatism based on humane values, smallholding, and even a more powerful state.

There is no doubt that capitalism is a disrupting force in human history. It rips apart culture, tradition, and localism in pursuit of profit and maximum individual freedom. It has been a liberating force in human history but certainly not a system based upon egalitarian distribution or favorable to mass democracy. Why would conservatives come to embrace so readily a destructive force like capitalism?

This is the question Kolozi sets out to answer by focusing on conservative intellectuals who did not embrace capitalism. And there were many of them. They all wrestled with what Kolozi considers “the central challenge for conservative...