Two-hundred twenty three years ago today, the intriguing and rather historically complex and enticing West Indian and revolutionary artillerist, Alexander Hamilton, published the first of the eighty-five editorials explaining, defending, and promoting the newly written and submitted U.S. Constitution. Published originally on the same day (today, that is, 1787) in four prominent New York newspapers, Federalist [...]
Readers of The Imaginative Conservative might be interested in a lecture CSPAN has been airing on CSPAN3 regarding the Old Republicans, a groups of 19th-century American statesmen and men of letters who believed Jefferson and Madison had (almost) destroyed the republic during their respective presidencies. Taken as a whole, Russell Kirk argued in his first book, John [...]
As America continues on her path toward the twilight realm of decayed republics and bloated empires, it's painfully difficult for the citizen not to reflect upon that great republic of the classical world, Rome, and its fate. At its end, the republic produced its best man, Marcus T. Cicero, who could only remind those around [...]
It is astounding this happened, considering how very much on the right Vargas Llosa is. Here's NPR's take. Additionally, I have, for well over a decade, proudly been teaching Vargas Llosa, especially in the context of western civilization. Specifically, I've always been impressed with his understanding of the importance of the western tradition (and specifically [...]
Jason Sorens Jason Sorens, an editor of the website Pileus has offered a challenge to thinking conservatives. Essentially, he claims such a beast is rarer than rare. His post is worth reading. http://pileusblog.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/atheists-are-just-smarter/ […]
In the 1920s and 1930s, the great historian and English man of letters Christopher Dawson lamented the rise of cinema, believing it to be nothing more than a secular liturgy, an ideological replacement of the Catholic mass, and a return to Plato’s Cave. By 1959, however, after having lived a year in Boston, Dawson admitted [...]
This past Saturday, I had a meaningful time with Vigen Guroian, Annette Kirk, George Nash, Doug Minson, and a number of very bright students from the University of Virginia and from Central Michigan University. After the best lecture that I have ever seen George Nash deliver (and, he’s always quite good), Vigen brilliantly led us [...]
Considering the rather vigorous debate (as seen in the multiple essays) regarding the goodness of the constitution, I thought it might be good to publish a few of the best quotes from the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. I think it’s critically important to remember that each side of the debate in the late 1780s was populated [...]
Two hundred twenty-three years ago yesterday, thirty-nine men signed the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia. Only days before autumn arrived, the proposed constitution made its way to the various United States for approval and ratification. One would be hard pressed to find a summer more dedicated to pursing the American experiment of liberty under law. [...]
Dear Readers of The Imaginative Conservative, I apologize for the hastiness of this essay. I’m getting ready to head to fascinating programs in Grand Rapids (led by the incomparable Gleaves Whitney and featuring the wise and sagacious Barbara Elliott) and Mecosta (led by the force of nature, Annette Kirk, and the man of deep convictions [...]
As I was preparing this afternoon for classes tomorrow (Monday), I came across a photocopy of a 1991 article by our very own Gleaves Whitney entitled “Decadence and Its Critics.” A wave of nostalgia overcame me. I first read the article (and have since re-read it many times) on a trans-Atlantic flight to Frankfort, en [...]
How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization—Thomas Woods, Regnery History; Reprint edition (September 18, 2012). While the dismissal or even outright hatred of the Catholic Church among scholars began long before the eighteenth century, Edward Gibbon may have made the most potent and lasting attack on the Church in his Decline and Fall of the Roman [...]
Bradley J. Birzer As I was going through some files in my campus office this afternoon, I came across photocopies of articles from a now mostly forgotten journal, The Colosseum. Founded by Bernard Wall (1908-1974) and Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) in 1934 as a new, even more polemical journal than had been the four [...]
Though I’ve never had the good fortune to meet Richard Purtill, I assume he must be a deeply fascinating man. In the 1950s, he traveled to England and met Frank Sheed and Maisie Ward, perhaps two of the most important figures in the twentieth-century Roman Catholic intellectual renaissance. These two did much to promote the [...]