In his Conservatism: Ideas in Profile, a small introduction to a big topic, Roger Scruton explains how conservative thinking has, over the past 400 years, steered Britain out of the conflict between church and state, embraced the progressive elements of the Enlightenment and then joined forces with classical liberals in the defeat of socialism. But conservatism today faces a bigger task, which Scruton describes as the need to ‘become the champion of Western civilisation against its enemies’.