Only a week or so before Henry Regnery published Russell Kirk’s first masterpiece, The Conservative Mind, Mr. Ray Bradbury, science fiction novelist, screenplay writer, and all-around wit, wrote and published a fascinating and insightful article, “The Day After Tomorrow.” Whether or not my ideas on censorship via the fire department will be old hat by [...]
Dan Simmons, Hyperion (1989) A month or so ago, I asked two of my Kiwi progressive rock/science fiction friends, Russell Clarke and Paul Watson, for some recommendations for dystopian and apocalyptic fiction. We already share a lot in common, and, after comparing lists, Russell realized I’d not read anything by Dan Simmons. I was already somewhat [...]
As far back as I can remember, my mother always had new books to offer me. When I was just staring to read, she gave me Dr. Seuss and Richard Scary books. These were my favorites. As soon as I was old enough to ride my bike any distance at all, she had me get [...]
In this video, Dr. Bradley Birzer of Hillsdale College brings his background as a Kirk biographer to bear on Kirk’s magnum opus: The Conservative Mind. […]
One of the most unsung and nearly forgotten cultural critics of the 1980s was director John Hughes. His movies were equal parts perceptive insights into the human condition, mockeries of unearned and undeserved authority, slapstick comedy, and examinations of tight friendships. "We'll never see his like again," said economist Ben Stein, a close friend of [...]
Across the street from my house in Hillsdale, Michigan, rests the body of Ransom Dunn, a historian at Hillsdale College and one of the founders of the Republican Party. I can see his gravestone from my driveway, and I can see my house, rather clearly, from his gravestone. In February, 1854, disgusted with the specious [...]
Two-hundred and forty years ago this spring, Edmund Burke delivered one of his most important as well as one of his most meaningful speeches to Parliament. It is, rhetorically considered, perfect. He delivered it on April 19, 1774, in an attempt to calm down the anger and passions of a Parliament still grappling with the [...]
In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passed five of what the Americans called the “Intolerable Acts.” A group of disgruntled Marylanders reacted by forming the Annapolis Convention, which sought ways to “best secure American liberty” and which sparked resistance to British “tyranny” throughout the colonies. On January 19, 1774, the news of the [...]
Though I’m only about 200 pages into Robert Middlekauff’s massive 1982 history of the American founding, The Glorious Cause, I’m willing to take a chance and label it not just a “good book” but a “great book.” Middlekauff not only possesses sheer mastery over the era—as though he lived in it—but he’s never afraid to [...]
Think about the men of Lexington or the members of the First Continental Congress. Did they deliberate, did they shed blood, did they sacrifice so that our government—the first major republic in almost 2,000 years—could devolve in the same fashion, only much faster, than the last major republic? Rebellion is not necessarily secessionist in the [...]
Those of us who belong to The Imaginative Conservative community spend a great deal of time lamenting the all-pervasive influence of ideologies, systems, and abstractions in this modern and post-modern vale of tears. We distrust them and those who advocate them, knowingly or unknowingly, and we presume they indicate a certain amount of undue pride, that [...]
While I don’t know much about the techniques of painting, landscapes, and portraiture, I know what I like. And, I very much like—well, love is much more accurate—the art of Anna Rose Bain. Anna left quite an impression on almost everyone after spending four years at Hillsdale. As talented as she is kind and beautiful, [...]
Being a professor in my mid-forties, I have become increasingly aware of the generational differences between the current generation of college students and those of my generation. Of course, as I get older, they naturally seem younger and younger (though, let me be clear, I love my Hillsdale students). And, as the age of my [...]
It’s somewhat criminal that Kevin McCormick is not better known. An avid reader and fan of The Imaginative Conservative, a father of four, and a dedicated husband and member of his small Texas parish, McCormick has been fighting for the good, the true, and the beautiful all of his adult life. I can vouch for [...]