It just may be the case that The Perfect State was not even a state. For, once upon a time there was a northern, medieval phenomenon as much the subject of universal myth and curiosity as that of the enchantress-republics flourishing down south: the Hanseatic League of the mid-13th to 16th centuries. Lorenzo ‘Il Magnifico‘, [...]
“How is this relevant?” someone might ask about some venerable work from the tradition, such as the Aeneid or King Lear or Aristotle's De Anima. The one doing the asking might seem to be in possession of a burning truth about the uniqueness of the present moment, but the more we commit the past to [...]
On Veterans Day, we honor our surviving warriors. We rightly give thanks to those who have sacrificed their personal peace for the survival of the nation. And we rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the pledge “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” War endures. The oldest [...]
What does courage actually look like? Why is it that many who can face mortal dangers in battle lack the other virtues? How do you account for a man like Cicero, whose voice trembled at the beginning of every speech and who never distinguished himself in battle, yet who stood up to Catiline and saved [...]
It is fitting that one of the most profound thinkers of the 20th century should also have been one of its most obscure. Nicolás Gómez Dávila's critique of democracy may go some way in explaining why he remains a relatively unknown figure in the English-speaking world, for we in the modern West are all children [...]
American history is a subject that has suffered from bad teaching, and public education in general is profoundly deforming in so many ways these days. This is why John Niemann, a veteran teacher at classical schools in the Twin Cities, saw a need several years ago and met it with the Saint John Paul II [...]
The pursuit of ideological history always ends with the installation of a new elite, a new ruling class, a new set of exploiters. Instead, historians should practice good history and humane learning, avoid the temptations of ideology and “relevance,” and defend the universities. In 1969, the American Historical Association broke down into hostile wings, one [...]
Christopher Columbus offers us the example of those virtues that the old Romans called fortitude and constancy; and the example of those virtues that the early Christians called faith and hope. Half a millennium ago, a Genoese navigator with three caravels and Spanish crews groped his way among the islands of the Caribbean. Thus commenced [...]
Since throughout history, strong and cohesive nations generally have had strong and cohesive historical narratives, how long can America continue to do without one? Do our historians now have an obligation to help us recover one? American history needs to be seen in the context of a larger drama. But there is sharp disagreement over [...]
The study of history in public schools should be conducted with an eye to “fostering good citizenship.” But it should do more than that. It should foster good human beings—human beings with broad minds and contemplative souls who appreciate the power of ideas. “If history be, in truth, the self consciousness of humanity, the ‘self [...]
The true historian attempts to recapture the past for its own sake. He goes about this goal intentionally, always resisting the temptation to eschew complexity for relatability. He is better able to get to the root of an inquiry, to discern what really happened from what we wanted to happen, to learn what past men [...]
Drawing from history, our founders understood that liberty and justice could not exist in the same neighborhood as censorship. The solution for our current state, then, is not censorship but civility and a steadfast clinging to the American principles codified in our founding documents, which must be common and applicable to all equally under the [...]
To understand the journey of the human imagination across civilizations and centuries, one must grasp how the utterly fascinating Hellenic invention of the “democratized” concept of moral judgment in the afterlife came into its beautiful philosophical maturity. And so they came to Rome —Acts IV. “I was not, I was, I am not, I do [...]
History lessons, brought to life by primary sources, help students move beyond interpretations of the past to the past as it was. History then no longer appears musty and impersonal, and when excellently taught, reveals an unchanging picture of human nature: one that is deeply personal, surprisingly relatable, and amazingly understandable. History excellently taught needs [...]