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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and life.

My name is Freddie Gray. I'm the deputy editor of the spectator.

I am delighted to be joined by Yoram Hazzoni, who is the author of a new book called

Conservatism, A Rediscovery. Yoram, I think we'll get onto the book directly in a moment,

but as I was reading it, Britain was in 10 days of official

morning and we had the funeral of the queen. And it struck me that a lot of the themes in your book

was sort of applicable to this moment in British history. I wondered, did you watch it?

And did you think about the nature of conservatism in relation to the monarchy in Britain?

I certainly did. I feel a little bit out of my depth trying to explain traditional monarchy to a British audience.

But the book, in fact, is all about the problem of what politics looks like when you frame it so that it's all about

freedom. And nothing is about tradition, the way that you honor traditions, duties to traditions,

the mutual loyalty among peoples that pass down traditions and the, you know, the astonishing feeling of

unity and identification, fellow feeling that people feel when they're part of something like

that. And this amazing outpouring of love and grief and mutual affinity for the crown

in the UK and in fact in other common

wealth countries as well. I think it's a glaring, astonishing reminder of the fact that human

beings are not made only of a desire for freedom, but also of a sense of obligation and participation.

Yes, and a desire to be part of a nation, which is another one of your big themes.

Your last book, which was very successful, The Virtue of Nationalism,

talked a lot about this.

The desire to be part of a nation is very important to people,

...