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 [...]
Political Philosophy: A Historical Introduction by Michael J. White […]
H. Lee Cheek In many regards, 2012 has been a troubling, nay, bewildering year. 2013 offers the possibility of a recovery and the renewal of our political tradition. Here are the books that I am giving as Christmas gifts. Kevin Gutzman’s James Madison and the Making of America (St. Martins, 2012), offers the [...]
As the recent petitions to the White House confirm, secession is an idea that never goes away. The verb “secede” is derived from the Latin “secessio,” meaning any act of withdrawal. Originally introduced in the seventeenth century as a concept of ecclesiastical discourse and political theory, secession assumes the existence of the modern state, as [...]
Francis Graham Wilson Francis Graham Wilson (1901-1976), an eminent political scientist, lifelong scholar of public opinion, and a central figure in the postwar American conservative intellectual movement, was born near Junction, Texas, to Horace Ernest and Stella Jane (Graham) Wilson. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1923 and earned a master’s [...]
Patriotism and Public Spirit: Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid-18th Century Britain, is a groundbreaking study of the great political philosopher Edmund Burke. The book provides a scholarly advancement of existing knowledge regarding Burke and the intellectual milieu that was so important to his development as a thinker. Chapter one offers an [...]
Eco-Republic:What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living by Melissa Lane In this provocative and accessible reflection on the potential contributions of Platonic political thought to the resolution of contemporary environmental problems, Lane (Princeton) attempts to craft “an intuitive and imaginative model inspired by the ancients” (p. 6). As a work in [...]
Clergyman, educator and social critic, Bernard Iddings Bell (October 13, 1886-September 5, 1958) was born in Dayton, Ohio, and educated at the University of Chicago (B.A., 1907), Western Theological Seminary (S.T.B., 1912), The University of the South (S.T.D., 1923), and he also received numerous honorary degrees. In college Bell temporarily rejected his Episcopal Church upbringing. Under the [...]
According to John C. Calhoun, Thomas Jefferson served as the “Republican Patriarch,” the political thinker who had incorporated the republican understanding of liberty into a theory of federal relationships most conducive to the life of the community and political order. John Caldwell Calhoun inherited the social and political tradition of his South Atlantic world, confirmed [...]
Lynn Harold Hough The First World War and the Great Depression provided myriad challenges to the mission of the Methodist Church. As a nation began to doubt its role in the modern world, one of the country’s most dominant and politically-engaged religious denominations sought to respond to the chaos by reconsidering its own [...]
Among the contributions to I’ll Take My Stand, Allen Tate’s “Remarks on the Southern Religion” is usually interpreted as the most acerbic, immoderate, and unusual essay in the collection. All too often the essay is read as an apologia for violence or an eccentric defense of tradition. In fact, Tate–like his fellow Agrarians–was seeking to [...]
Spellman, W. M. A Short History of Western Political Thought (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011). In this readable and succinct volume, Spellman (University of North Carolina, Asheville) provides an introduction to the evolution of political ideas that have shaped the West. The author synthesizes a tremendous body of historical and philosophical sources into an accessible [...]