About Bradley J. Birzer

Bradley J. Birzer is the co-founder of, and Senior Contributor at, The Imaginative Conservative. He is the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College and Fellow of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Dr. Birzer is author of In Defense of Andrew Jackson, Russell Kirk: American Conservative, American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll, Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth, co-editor of The American Democrat and Other Political Writings by James Fenimore Cooper, and co-author of The American West.

The Meaning of Liberty During the American Revolution

By |2021-05-11T14:16:12-05:00March 31st, 2012|Categories: American Republic, Audio/Video, Bradley J. Birzer, Republicanism|

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here. The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now. We hope you will join us in The [...]

Conservatism and the Western Tradition: Part IV

By |2019-11-14T15:36:16-06:00March 20th, 2012|Categories: Audio/Video, Bradley J. Birzer, Conservatism, W. Winston Elliott III|

Below is Part IV in our video program “Conservatism and the Western Tradition” with Bradley J. Birzer and Winston Elliott, III. There are five segments of this discussion here at The Imaginative Conservative. (To watch the other parts in this series, click here for Part I, Part II, Part III, Part V) […]

St. Calhoun, Part I

By |2015-11-10T17:54:58-06:00March 18th, 2012|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Conservatism, John C. Calhoun, South|

John C. Calhoun Last weekend, I had the grand privilege of working with Emily Corwin, Adam Tate, and Richard Brake at a co-sponsored ISI/Liberty Fund colloquium in Philadelphia. Held at the gorgeous Omni, we overlooked Independence Hall. Our topic: Union, republic, and nullification. As I have been so many times in my adult [...]

An Augustinian Wasteland: A Canticle for Leibowitz

By |2014-01-07T22:16:12-06:00March 6th, 2012|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer|Tags: |

There was objective meaning in the world, to be sure: the nonmoral logos or design of the Creator; but such meanings were God’s and not Man’s, until they found an imperfect incarnation, a dark reflection, within the mind and speech and culture of a given human society, which might ascribe values to the meanings so [...]

Charles Carroll, the Catholic Founder: An Interview with Dr. Bradley J. Birzer

By |2013-12-03T21:39:36-06:00March 1st, 2012|Categories: American Cicero, American Founding, American Republic, Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Charles Carroll, Religion, Republicanism|Tags: , |

by Carl Olson Dr. Bradley J. Birzer is the author of Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth. In this interview he talks with Carl E. Olson, editor of Ignatius Insight, about his most recent book, American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll. Ignatius Insight: Why a book about Charles [...]

The Conservative Adventure

By |2016-08-03T10:37:36-05:00February 24th, 2012|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christendom, Conservatism, Journalism, Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot|

Please forgive the following rambles. I’m in Louisville, ready to work with the mighty Gary Gregg again today. Last night, I had the great privilege of speaking with a number of his excellent McConnell Fellows for nearly two hours about Eliot’s Ash Wednesday and another ninety minutes on Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. I [...]

Edmund Burke Reviews Adam Smith, Twice

By |2019-05-30T11:11:03-05:00February 21st, 2012|Categories: Adam Smith, Bradley J. Birzer, Economics, Edmund Burke, Political Economy|

Imaginative Conservative Readers, considering how much we revere Burke here, I thought it might be good to reprint the following two pieces from him. While I knew he and Adam Smith were close friends, I did not realize until yesterday (February 19, 2012) that he had briefly reviewed each of Smith’s major works. Burke’s words [...]

Owen Barfield: Effective Approach to Social Change (part I)

By |2018-12-10T17:34:34-06:00February 10th, 2012|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Conservatism, Inklings, Literature, Moral Imagination|Tags: |

Few conservatives–with the notable exception of John Lukacs–remember or cite Owen Barfield any longer. This is a shame, and Barfield should really stand with the great Christian Humanists of the previous century. Perhaps his best work is his first, Poetic Diction, originally his undergraduate thesis at Oxford (1922). Published commercially in 1928, it has never [...]

T.S. Eliot, Literature of Politics (part II–conclusion)

By |2019-04-18T13:22:03-05:00February 1st, 2012|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Conservatism, Liberal Learning, Politics, T.S. Eliot|

(read part I here) . . . [in original] But how, in the end, does the work of a mere writer affect political life? One is sometimes tempted to answer that the profounder and wiser the man, the less likely is his influence to be discernible. This, of course, is to take a very short [...]

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