While explicating Russell Kirk, Dr. Birzer is drawing attention to a larger conservative intellectual tradition and inviting a reconsideration of what that tradition has to offer. Dr. Birzer is here not merely an erudite and perceptive historian but also a thinker in his own right... Russell Kirk: American Conservative by Bradley Birzer (574 pages, University Press [...]
Though he passed away in 1968, Donald Davidson’s efforts and criticisms continue to deserve much attention, since the South has become more decadent in its disregard for the past since his death… Mel Bradford has argued that no individual has exerted more influence upon the development of a profession of letters this century in [...]
Contemporary liberalism provides solutions that only exacerbate current domestic and international tensions… The Cultural Defense of Nations: A Liberal Theory of Majority Rights by Liav Orgad (Oxford University Press, 2016) Liberal constitutional and political theory has increasingly defended the status of often newly created or invented minorities, defined more expansively with each new theoretical formulation, [...]
Here, dear readers, are four books to prepare you for the political season that lies ahead of us in 2017.... 1) Constitutional Morality and the Rise of Quasi-Law (Harvard University Press, 2016) The final work by my friend and mentor, the late and great George Carey, and also by one of the best scholars of [...]
Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Lee Cheek as he examines the importance of agrarianism in American life and the necessity of restoring its place within our culture. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher Among the contributions to I’ll Take My Stand, Allen Tate’s “Remarks on the Southern [...]
Patriotism and Public Spirit: Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain, by Ian Crowe (Stanford University Press, 2012) Ian Crowe’s recent, pioneering study of political philosopher Edmund Burke is a cause for celebration. It advances scholarly knowledge of Burke and the intellectual milieu that was so important to his development as [...]
The misguided effort to have Yale University rename Calhoun College is a sign that we contemporary Americans have a tendency to forget who we are, and to engage in what has become known as political correctness. The advocates of political correctness want to corrupt history for temporary political gain, and their efforts are, sadly, [...]
The last year or so has been a most propitious time for thoughtful studies of social and political life. In an age when fewer and fewer people read serious books, a gift of a weighty tome serves as a statement and challenge to one’s family and friends. Here are some gifts of permanence that may [...]
We understand and sympathize with people’s anger and frustration about recent events in Charleston, but the misguided effort to damage the statue of Vice-President John C. Calhoun in Marion Square, as well as the many other destructive acts throughout the nation, is a sign of how we as contemporary Americans have a tendency to [...]
Allen Tate Who Owns America? followed I’ll Take My Stand–which had appeared six years earlier–as a more diverse sequel and defense of decentralization. More importantly, Who Owns America? was explicitly a plea for a recovery of what had been lost: a humane social order. If the Agrarian and Distributist insights contained in [...]
On September 9th, with the passing of Dr. William Wesley McDonald, the American academy lost a talented teacher and defender of humane learning. The American conservative movement, or what remains of authentic conservatism, has also lost a strong advocate for restraint in social and political life. From a very early age, Wes came to [...]
As a traditionalist, a defender of the tried and true against the new and untried, a devotee of personal restraint when faced with overriding challenges, and a defender of the inherited tradition, the present writer has been a critic of change, especially dramatic upheavals, for all of his life. However, twelve years ago he [...]
The current revival and increased appreciation of the sacraments within “Mainline” Protestantism provides the disciples of the Reformation with a great opportunity for liturgical recovery. While a renascence has been taking place for some decades, often distracted by “political” and “liturgically correct” elements, Methodists remain in a unique position to advance their understanding and [...]
Strong Constitutions: Social-Cognitive Origins of the Separation of Powers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013) by Maxwell A. Cameron In this imaginative and readable book, Cameron (University of British Columbia) provides a learned defense of the separation of powers. While not disputing the importance of the separation of powers as a source of restraint in democratic theory, the [...]