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 Indians. Yet, when we consider the main narrative of American history—that told from the standpoint of Plymouth [...]
In the early nineteenth century, Americans assumed that the Indians would fall in line with the United States, recognizing the young republic as the indisputable new Great Father. But the title, they quickly found out, had to be earned. In 1818, Indian Commissioner Benjamin Parke attempted to treat with the Miamis, Weas, and Delawares but [...]
Like all human beings, Andrew Jackson certainly had his faults—sometimes spectacular, brutal, and violent ones—but is it just to label him, as one recent critic has, simply as "a slaver, ethnic cleanser, and tyrant"? Sometime in the last several years, it has become the cultural norm to see President Andrew Jackson as the sum of [...]
The vast majority of Americans think of Andrew Jackson as a despicable man: a scoundrel, an uncouth violent redneck, hell-bent on the imperial expansion of the United States with the American Indians his burnt offerings to whatever god he worshipped. But my research has revealed Jackson as a true American republican, a virtuous man of the [...]
Real, actual letters are a gift, an insight into our best and our worst selves. Unlike the present world of the ephemeral email and hatchet posts on social media, letters of the pre-internet era could be gorgeous works of art. In them, the writer shares just a bit of his soul, preserving it for time, [...]
Our world drowns in information, facts, bites, noise, opinions, and other particulars. Yet, even the best of our students have the most difficult time connecting one thing to another. It is myth that allows us to transcend the immediate and the ephemeral... About ten years ago, I proposed a course of study for first-year college [...]
While explicating Russell Kirk, Dr. Birzer is drawing attention to a larger conservative intellectual tradition and inviting a reconsideration of what that tradition has to offer. Dr. Birzer is here not merely an erudite and perceptive historian but also a thinker in his own right... Russell Kirk: American Conservative by Bradley Birzer (574 pages, University Press [...]
When C.S. Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, he admitted that he did so in large part because Christianity answered the pagan longings he had experienced in his love of mythology and of all things northern. Northern Irishman C.S. Lewis holds such an important place in the hearts, minds, and souls of American Protestants that [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien's story of Númenor is the story of Athens, Rome, Great Britain, the United States, and every power that began with the best of intentions and saw itself decline because of envy and pride. It is the story of the Fall in Eden. It is grim, timeless, and true. Unquestionably, Tolkien's mythology was massive [...]
Seventy-five years after the publication of C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man, it is safe to say that the scientists and technologists and state makers and educational institutions and corporations have continued on the deadly path of making man not in the image of God, as manifested in nature, but in the image of some [...]
C.S. Lewis believed that immutable and timeless universal principles governed all persons throughout time and space. Though these principles would find manifestations particular to era, culture, and individual, the rules remained eternal. Additionally, these natural laws would always and everywhere be “self-evident.” Men might choose to ignore, distort, or mock them, but they could not [...]
In the modern world, C.S. Lewis argues in "The Abolition of Man," we have trained the head and encouraged the heart, while neglecting the soul, the most important part of the person. As Lewis so scathingly puts it, we are producing men without chests. No one could rightly accuse C.S. Lewis, who was raised as [...]
“Owen Barfield on C.S. Lewis” allows us to enter into the friendship of the two men in some mysterious and possibly mystical way. It is not just a testament to that friendship, it is a testament to friendship in general. “He stood before me as a mystery as solidly as he stood beside me as [...]
The Imaginative Conservative has never once proclaimed originality. Rather, it has proclaimed that true and abiding things exist, untouched by the mockery or ignorance of man. There are things that always exist, but are often forgotten… The Imaginative Conservative is eight years old today (July 10). A quick calculation shows that I’ve written roughly 416 [...]