King Haakon VII I didn’t know the story of King Haakon VII—democratically elected king of Norway!—and his noble opposition to the German National Socialist invasion of the Kingdom of Norway in 1940 until today. That such such heroism existed in the twentieth century gives me great hope for humanity. When the Germans invaded [...]
by Anthony Williams St. Augustine’s Confessions: teaches us that man’s struggle to find God is hardly new. I especially enjoyed his reference to the “hound of God”: what an apt description of the Spirit! Antigone: I don’t remember much about this one, to be frank, but I do remember that it’s a powerful story of [...]
The Lists 1. Bible 2. The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom 3. Toss up between Mere Christianity, Abolition of Man, Great Divorce, and Last Battle, C.S. Lewis 4. “The Right Hand,” Solzynistyn (short story) 5. “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” Tolstoy (short story) 6. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings 7. Confessions, St. Augustine 8. Gulag [...]
by Father John Rickert 1. Juan Donoso Cortés: Essay on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism. Donoso argues that political questions are at root theological questions, and Liberalism is fundamentally the denial of the doctrine of Original Sin as understood in the Catholic sense. Bl. Pius IX warmly approved this book, as did Garrigou-Lagrange and Orestes Brownson. 2. Juan [...]
Imaginative Conservative Readers, if you need to read something just stunning—in terms of form and thought—treat yourself to Laurel Good's most recent post at her website, Breeding Lilacs. You fill the hollow of my arm, child, bundled snug against the drafty night. Fingers no longer tiny, but still small, quiver delicately at your cheek. Your little [...]
St. Thomas Aquinasby Lee Cole It should go without saying that these ten entries are certainly not the ten “most essential” works in the history of human reflection upon the meaning of existence. Were that the case, the list would need to be amended to include the Bible, Plato’s Republic, the Shakespearean corpus, etc. These are simply [...]
by Kevin McCormick The Divine Comedy—Dante Alighieri; The original sci-fi trilogy. The Book of Psalms—King David, et al Orthodoxy—G.K. Chesterton; England’s Funniest Home Theology! The Lord of the Rings—J.R.R. Tolkien To Kill a Mockingbird—Harper Lee Let Us Now Praise Famous Men—James Agee; It is not surprising that many who praise Agee’s book see some kind of correlation between [...]
A favorite passage from Virgil’s AENEID, Book 8: The Shield of Aeneas But the goddess Venus Lustrous among the cloudbanks, bearing her gifts, Approached and when she spotted her son alone, Off in a glade’s recess by the frigid stream, She hailed him, suddenly there before him: ‘Look, Just forged to perfection by all my husband’s [...]
I invited a number of folks to contribute to a quasi-symposium for The Imaginative Conservative. With almost no direction, I asked these fine persons to list (without or with explanation) the 10 books that best allow us to understand our humanity. In large part, I’d like something new on my reading list. In equally large [...]
I read Bob Higgs’s book, Crisis and Leviathan, when it first came out in 1987. I was a college freshman or sophomore at the time, and it had a profound influence on me. I was already deeply libertarian, but mostly from instinct, a healthy Kansas fear of governmental authority, reading every dystopian science fiction [...]
(Part 1 here) . . . . The failure begins when children enter kindergarten. There are four sins of public education: equalitarianism, technicalism, progressivism, and egotism. That leveling spirit, that democratic movement which, although often termed particularly American, really is the spirit of this age throughout the world, is not to be resisted. Although there [...]
Russell Kirk's fourth published article, "A Conscript on Education," appeared in the South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 44 (1945), 82-99. As I started editing it for quotes to publish here at The Imaginative Conservative, I came to realize–very, very quickly–that the argument and writing were simply too good to break into parts. I often criticize my [...]
In 1944, Kirk published his third academic article, a beautifully transcribed and edited Civil War journal. While the soldier's experiences in the civil conflict are fascinating, more so is Kirk's summation, quoted below. It's worth remembering, Kirk had already spent two years as a conscript in the U.S. Army at the time this edited diary [...]
Kirk wrote the following piece while an undergraduate at Michigan State College. His second published academic article, he considered it his first foray into political analysis. As with much of what Kirk wrote, though, it is really a literary analysis of several figures during the New Deal who claimed the mantle of Jeffersonianism. Kirk argued [...]