The refusal to consider the possibility that the Magi were historical figures and not mythical magicians reflects the bias of both modernists and conservative believers. For Saint Matthew’s Gospel to actually be true rocks both their boats. My friend Sir Colin Humphreys wrote a book some time ago called The Miracles of Exodus. Sir Colin [...]
Historiography is not an exchange in the marketplace but a fight on the battlefield. It has a particular point of view on the past and punishes opponents; it is power politics masked as tolerant neutrality. The Left—like those behind the 1619 Project—understand the stakes and are fighting to maintain their legitimacy. It is time the Right [...]
Our destiny is not ultimate non-existence via the grave but an everlasting existence beyond the grave. The birth of Christ is the death of Death. The Incarnation was at the centre of history and was also its end. This is the Good News of the Gospel that we celebrate at Christmas. There are three ways [...]
John Trumbull, who would memorialize this great event in a painting which—commissioned in 1817 by Congress—now hangs in the United States Capitol Rotunda, called Washington’s resignation “one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world.” In an example of unrivaled statesmanship, General George Washington resigned his military commission at the State House in [...]
The project of the Stonehenge tunnel is a financially irresponsible state goal endeavour during a time of fiscal crisis and contraction, ignoring the reverence of heritage and undermining the social contract. From the bulldozing of Victorian buildings to the sacrilegious tunnelling, England’s Conservative Party is not acting conservative. The greatest obstacle facing Boris Johnson is [...]
We are not only failing to educate our young people, but we are also teaching them to despise their country. But the left immediately attacked President Trump's solution to this problem, comparing his commission on patriotic education to the indoctrination of Hitler Youth organizations in Nazi Germany. Last week my friend John was chatting with [...]
Part of the South’s charm is an ability to recognize the good, true, and beautiful in traditions other than its principally Protestant identity and heritage. And Kevin Starr’s excellent history reveals that American Catholic identity is deeply Southern. Continental Achievement: Roman Catholics in the United States, by Kevin Starr (330 pages, Ignatius Press, 2020) When [...]
Part of the modernist mythos has been the idea that historical clarity increases exponentially the closer one gets to one’s own time. The myth tells us that the origins of mankind, the development of civilization, the foundation of certain human institutions are all lost in the dim past. This is what I will call “the [...]
Once the British had returned to first principles and right reason, Edmund Burke argued, they would also be reminded of the practical things, such as good government, the cultivation of the middle class, and the protection of property. In other words, through the fight against the French Revolution, the British would return to being properly [...]
“Raphael Revealed” offers abundant opportunities to view an array of Raphael’s masterpieces up close in the context of the Rome of the early 16th century. One of the richest achievements of European art and culture once again becomes accessible and understandable. Exhibition on Screen, the long-running and highly popular series of high-definition documentary films about [...]
Advocates of patriotic education would do well to embrace the nationalist elements of such an approach to learning. Doing so is fraught with challenges given the negative connotations of the word, but Yoram Hazony’s book, “The Virtue of Nationalism,” may be a useful resource for educators, policymakers, and historians. In response to historical revisionism and [...]
As Alexis de Tocqueville’s writings demonstrate, despite its flaws and failings, America remains the best case study for the greatest successes of democracy. This success comes from the ability to integrate—to the point of inseparability—the love of religion and the love of liberty. Just as the continent of Europe was entering upon its phase of [...]
Richard Henry Dana, Sr. was acutely conscious that he was a man out-of-step with the antebellum ethos, an American High Tory in an era of rising democracy. Yet Dana was not some grouchy obsolete curmudgeon, and his withering critiques of America often hit their mark, exposing the weaknesses of liberty, democracy, and equality and bullishly [...]
When we study the classics, we might have the atlas open beside the book to remind us where we are and when we live. We can feel the overlays of history and empires and languages that sweep over the same disputed places. Relevant and contemporary to us, the great actions of mind and spirit strive [...]