To understand America, do not start with 1787. Or 1776. Or 1492. To understand America—or more precisely the most ancient roots of American order—go back to the second millennium B.C., to the Hebrews. Ancient Israel has had more influence on American culture than you think. So argues Russell Kirk in his magisterial work, The Roots [...]
Russell Kirk and the Roots of American Order Russell Kirk best tells the story of the West in The Roots of American Order. Now in its fourth edition, Roots is “simply one of the finest surveys of the classical, religious, and European influences on American political thought ever composed” (Lee Cheek). In his masterpiece, Dr. [...]
As I was preparing this afternoon for classes tomorrow (Monday), I came across a photocopy of a 1991 article by our very own Gleaves Whitney entitled “Decadence and Its Critics.” A wave of nostalgia overcame me. I first read the article (and have since re-read it many times) on a trans-Atlantic flight to Frankfort, en [...]
The imaginative conservative champions certain first principles in response to the fragmenting forces of modernity. Burke articulated a humane order to counter the “armed doctrines” of French revolutionaries in the eighteenth century; in turn, Kirk opposed the galloping statism and rapacious totalitarianism of the twentieth. These avatars set down principles that are drawn from the [...]