About Chuck Chalberg

John C. “Chuck” Chalberg is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative, writing from Minnesota. He brings history to life in the persons of G.K. Chesterton, George Orwell, H.L. Mencken, Branch Rickey, and Teddy Roosevelt at History on Stage. Dr. Chalberg also teaches American history, as well as an occasional course on G.K. Chesterton, online for Homeschool Connections. He taught American History at Normandale Community College.

Slavery and Abortion

By |2024-10-10T17:54:52-05:00October 10th, 2024|Categories: Abortion, American Republic, Politics, Slavery|

By linking it to the great moral issue of slavery, perhaps more people will find their way to the position that abortion too should be put on the road to ultimate extinction. If so, it’s possible that subsequent generations of Americans will come to regard our Stephen Douglas-popular sovereignty Republicans as having been on the [...]

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “An Unfinished Love Story”

By |2024-08-15T19:24:35-05:00August 13th, 2024|Categories: Books, History|

One comes away from reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book wishing that she might have expressed a doubt or two about the efficacy of this or that New Frontier/Great Society domestic initiative. But it is clear that the author has no doubts about the goodness of her country. An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of [...]

Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative

By |2024-07-17T19:16:06-05:00July 17th, 2024|Categories: Books, Conservatism|

Despite coming close to ruining his life on more than a few occasions, Glenn Loury, Professor of the Social Sciences and Economics at Brown University, has always managed to remain a "Player," both as a professor and as a public intellectual. That dual accomplishment is a testimony to his drive and determination, as well as [...]

The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt

By |2024-06-24T16:55:37-05:00June 24th, 2024|Categories: Books, History, Presidency, Progressivism, Republicans|

It’s entirely possible to imagine Theodore Roosevelt becoming President of the United States, even a Rushmore-eligible president, with an entirely different set of female loves. But it’s much less likely. The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President, by Edward F. O’Keefe. (446 pages, Simon and Schuster, 2024) Try as he might, [...]

Restoring American Exceptionalism

By |2024-06-18T13:55:23-05:00June 18th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Politics|

Working toward the restoration of the original American exceptionalism is a good idea, not to mention a more truly progressive one. Such an effort is still possible. Remember President Barack Obama’s response to a question concerning his thoughts on American exceptionalism? Yes, the president replied, he believed in American exceptionalism—just as a Brit believes in [...]

In The Courts of Three Popes

By |2024-04-21T18:51:14-05:00April 21st, 2024|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christendom, Christianity, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, St. John Paul II|

Mary Ann Glendon has written a very diplomatic account of her service in the courts of three popes. It seems that nothing that she encountered necessarily surprised her, but she felt like a “stranger in a strange land,” at a time in history that Bishop Fulton Sheen not all that long ago labeled the “end [...]

Should We End College Football?

By |2024-01-24T05:39:13-06:00January 23rd, 2024|Categories: Football, Sports|

The term “student-athlete” is at best inaccurate and at worst a fiction. Once upon a time college football was organized and run by and for students. Maybe it’s time to return to that by starting all over. Which institution of higher learning in America will one day become the University of Chicago of the twenty-first [...]

Christopher Lasch on the Elites’ Betrayal of Democracy

By |2024-01-09T18:06:27-06:00January 9th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Books, Community, Liberalism, Politics, Populism|

Though a self-described "man of the left," Christopher Lasch was once and always a populist. By the end of his life, he was concerned with the rise to power of American elites who, as of the mid-1990s, were already alien to—and divorced from—the masses of ordinary American citizens. The Revolt of the Elites and the [...]

Thomas Sowell’s “Social Justice Fallacies”

By |2023-11-26T11:30:25-06:00November 27th, 2023|Categories: American Republic, Books, Civil Society, Equality, Ethnicity, Politics|

Thomas Sowell is quite content to make his case while he waits for the political tide to turn. The way things are going, this nonagenarian may still be on hand when conservative black politicians are the major American voice of this American minority. If and when that happens, wherever Thomas Sowell is, he will know [...]

Time to Retire the Term “Progressive”?

By |2023-10-24T20:43:13-05:00October 24th, 2023|Categories: History, Politics, Progressivism|

Could I ask a small favor? Could we either retire the adjective “progressive” whenever it is used in a political context or, if not, could we apply it more universally? Confused? Stay tuned. To be sure, the word has a lengthy history In American politics. That history stretches back to the early days of the [...]

“The Hour of Fate”: Theodore Roosevelt & American Capitalism

By |2023-08-21T18:27:32-05:00August 21st, 2023|Categories: American Republic, Books, Capitalism, Economics, Politics, Presidency, Teddy Roosevelt, Timeless Essays|

Theodore Roosevelt was the obvious victor in both of the “battles to transform American capitalism.” He refused to do the bidding of the coal operators and instead helped engineer a compromise. American capitalism was not so much transformed as tamed in the process. The Hour of Fate: Theodore Roosevelt, J.P. Morgan and the Battle to [...]

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