 The work of major Victorian thinker and writer Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) bears a complex relationship with conservatism; in his later career he was a reactionary. Carlyle was a prophet of his time who rejected industrialisation, and questioned progress; in these respects he was a precursor of the equally influential Victorian thinker, John Ruskin. But Carlyle was an authoritarian radical, closer to Nietzsche’s aristocratic radicalism or elitism; his position was therefore removed both from Burkean conservatism, and rationalist conservatism. He insisted on the importance of leadership, and is perhaps best known for his “great man” theory of history. He supported the South in the American Civil War, and objected to economics as “the dismal science” because of its failure to justify slavery.