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 Who [...]
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 the [...]
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 was [...]
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 recover [...]
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 [...]
We need not assume the mantle of an anti-materialist to appreciate that a certain degree of social equilibrium is dismissed or ignored during the holidays, allowing for a lack of societal and personal restraint. Many otherwise normal considerations are subsumed into the pursuit of a “happy” holiday. All too often this demands we forgo normal [...]
The Conservative Mind by Dr. Russell Kirk, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, still exerts considerable influence over the intellectual elements of American Conservatism. Dr. H. Lee Cheek delivers a lecture on this book for The McConnell Center at the University of Louisville’s “Milestones of the 20th Century: Democracy in America” lecture series. This [...]
A History of Political Ideas from Antiquity to the Middle Ages by Philippe Nemo As the first part of a two volume survey of political thought, Philippe Nemo approaches the field of study in a manner different from many American texts. Appealing to readers with “little prior knowledge” of political thought, the author provides a lucid, [...]
Culture, for Immanuel Kant, should be understood not as an aesthetic pursuit of the transcendentals, but as overarching basis for the moral improvement of all humans. The “Conjectural Beginning of Human History”[1] is Kant’s attempt to recast the creation story of Genesis. The procreative act of Yahweh is cooperative in the sense heaven and earth are [...]
M.E. Bradford was was truly one of the giants of the postwar conservative intellectual movement. A Southerner first, he was naturally both an agrarian and a conservative. The late M.E. (“Mel”) Bradford (1934-1993) was truly one of the giants of the postwar conservative intellectual movement. A Texan (born in Fort Worth), Bradford earned his B.A. [...]
Tocqueville: The Aristocratic Sources of Liberty by Lucien Jaume While this profound, and elegantly written and translated work, will not appeal to all scholars of political thought, Lucien Jaume (Centre Recherche Politiques de Sciences Po) nevertheless provides many insights into the life and work of the great French student of American social and political life. Emphasizing [...]
A Review of William H. F. Altman’s Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: The Philosopher of the Second Reich (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2013). In this imaginative and refined commentary on Nietzsche’s political thought, Altman provides an incisive critique of the achievement of Nietzsche, as well as his limitations. The work is the third volume of a trilogy on German [...]
H. Lee Cheek The Wise Men Know What Wicked Things Are Written on the Sky, by Russell Kirk Wise Men is a collection of 11 lively essays by the wise old sage who was contemporary conservatism’s most able prophet. The Kirk neophyte will find these essays most alluring; it is unusual to experience such [...]
The purpose of this essay is to elucidate the importance of Plato’s commitment to rational discourse in the Apology and Gorgias. Both dialogues chronicle the transfer of authority from the destructive world of Athens to the philosophers. The organization of politics and society, according to Plato, is determined by the orderliness of the souls of its citizens. The central [...]