England

Banning Books and Burning Heretics

Advocates of the liberal arts include “heretical" books in the great conversation, whereas political liberals seek to silence them as dangerous. As we have seen in Nazi Germany and in communist countries, the banning of “heretical” books ends with the burning of “heretics”…

Thomas More on Conscience, Courage, & the Comedy of Politics

As the gulf between classical and postmodern notions of conscience and government grows ever wider and their clashes more explosive, it is high time for the jury to give renewed attention to the nuances of Thomas More’s understanding of the apparently competing, but ultimately harmonious, demands of divine, natural, and...

The Underground Shakespeare

Despite their obscurity, The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis were Shakespeare's best-sellers. But why were these poems so wildly popular? In Shadowplay—her first book about the secret messages in Shakespeare’s plays—Clare Asquith...

Thomas Gray’s Desperate Pastoral

In his "Elegy," Thomas Gray wrote a great, some­times mystifying and troubling poem, and, where the pastoral impulse is concerned, an admonishing one... No one born after the French Revolution, said the durable Talleyrand, can know how...

G.K. Chesterton’s “What’s Wrong With the World”

The next time someone tells you that reactionaries and other assorted defenders of the family and private property do not care about the poor, invite them to read G.K. Chesterton’s final words in What’s Wrong with the World... A...

The Conservative Vision of Richard Vobes

The subtext of YouTuber Richard Vobes' journeys around England is that what is old, what has stood the test of time, deserves our veneration. In a throw-away culture when we are too distracted, too mesmerized by our technological gadgets to be able to engage in real wonder,...

Rebuilding Western Civilization: A Tale of Two Monasteries

The three vows of the Benedictine monk are obedience, stability, and conversion of life. In our own ways, we can follow this example, making it real by paying attention to prayer, cracking the books in solid study, and rolling up our sleeves in the honest, hard work...

The Fourth of July: An Englishman’s Perspective

Many moons ago, for this very journal, I wrote an essay entitled "Giving Thanks for Thanksgiving,” offering an Englishman’s perspective on the singularly American feast that ushers in the holiday season. In...

Home Thoughts From Abroad

Joseph Pearce, a hobbit in exile, muses on the Shire. O to be in England Now that April’s there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now! —Robert Browning (Home-thoughts, from Abroad)  

Is America an Idea?

The civic-nationalist view holds that subscribing to the philosophy of the Founding—equality, opportunity, individualism—is the defining trait of the American people. But others argue that it is those uniquely American practices that order the rhythms of life that make us love the United States as our home...

All the Devils Are Here: Britain’s Culture of Death

So brazenly was Britain's Culture of Death on display recently that the scales dropped from the eyes of any who wished to see. Many do not want to see, though, and look away as life support machines are turned off, and the full force of the law is used...

C. S. Lewis: Critic of Progressivism

While most of us associate C.S. Lewis with theological literature, the renowned author sounded the siren against progressivism’s clear dangers not only to the political rights and liberties of man, but also to our very perception of the reality of mankind...

Sherlock Homeless

I watched Sherlock with a growing sense of sorrow for the homelessness of Holmes, and for the homelessness of those who wrote it, and for the homelessness of so many of those who watch it. I share their sense that we live in a vale of tears...

A Yuletide Carol with a Difference

Yes, there are always the Scrooges who seek to spoil the Christmas party, staying out in the cold and dark. Meanwhile, warming ourselves at the hearth, let’s get into the spirit of the Season and enjoy a modern Christmas carol translated into Old English...