Countercultural Conservative: The Life of Jonathan Bowden

With the intensity of an autistic autodidact, Bowden could carry crowds with powerful startling speeches. A first biography reveals his true complexity.

If you search out figures who have influenced the cultural right, various names will come up. They include Thomas Carlyle, René Guénon, Julius Evola, Renaud Camus, Carl Schmitt and others. They each have their specialism, which consequently attracts posthumous constituencies. The name that comes up among young creators is Englishman Jonathan Bowden.

Do some cursory research and you will find Bowden was a peripheral figure, joining and leaving the British Nation Party, The Freedom Party and other Far Right groups. He never won political office, never held an academic position, published no substantial political volumes and died aged 49. He was difficult, argumentative, unstable. Watch a video of him and you will see a portly man with thick spectacles, wearing a tight suit, as he speaks to a group in a small room, his face ruddy and his gestures animated. It is a mildly comic sight, but listen to the cadences, absorb his energy and follow his line of thought and you can begin to see why some listeners considered him the greatest orator of his age.