Despite all Christopher Dawson's quirks and social fears, friends flocked to him; together, they read poetry, discussed philosophy, farmed, and made crafts. Would there have been a European renaissance of Christian Humanism without this friendship centered around "Tiger Dawson"? Almost certainly not...
As we begin the 19th year of the 21st century, we no longer have the right to pretend the century is young—to believe that we cannot judge it in the way we can judge any previous century. Nearly...
One of the things that I have, blessedly, never taken for granted is how many astounding intellects, diverse personalities, and creative persons I’ve encountered in my life. I don't know what I did to deserve such interactions, but...
Though a classic in its own right, and arguably the first book on conservatism in the modern world, Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France of 1790 is inconsistent as a coherent work. And, yet, even in its unevenness,...
As Edmund Burke began to wind down his very long letter—that which would become 1790’s Reflections on the Revolution in France—he returned to the question of first principles and right reason, especially in regard to the nature of...
Standing with his father as they watched the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, eight-year-old John Quincy Adams must have wondered in amazement at the bloody and brutal nobility of it all. And, what must he have thought...
In a season of disharmony, discord, distrust, and disorder, it is often painful to stop, to pause, and to give oneself distance enough to consider what must be recognized as good, and true, and beautiful, even in what...
The Union soldiers defending Forts Sumter and Moultrie in Charleston Harbor had come to believe that their honor, as well as the honor of the Constitution and the federal government, was at stake... ...
In 1620, an extraordinary thing happened.
At a small landing on the extreme western edge of the Atlantic Ocean, a boat named “Mayflower” rested just off shore of a rock, soon to be named Plymouth....
Russell Kirk never liked the word individualism, believing it both an incorrect way to understand the human person as well as aesthetically unattractive. Having read much of the great German and French Christian humanists in the 1940s and...
Rather than justify Jackson’s deeds, In Defense of Jackson instead depicts its subject in the context of his own world. In doing so, author Bradley Birzer makes a remarkable contribution to the Jackson historiography that effectively tackles Old Hickory’s political disposition in a concise single volume. Whether one enters...
When Americans claim that the 2016 election was the most contentious in history or that we’ve never been as divided as a people as we are now, I have to try very hard not to be smug. After...
One of the most important aspects of early American history is just how devoid of actual Roman Catholics it is. Obviously, on the North American continent, Catholicism throve in the French and Spanish areas and, frequently, among American...
Jean Baptiste Richardville
In 1818, Indian Commissioner Benjamin Parke attempted to treat with the Miamis, Weas, and Delawares but found only frustration. He should have been wielding significant influence. Only three years earlier the United...
