Hoping to prove successful in combining a love of things old with mythology and with a desire to uphold the dignity of the human person in a world rent asunder by warring ideologies, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis challenged each other to create deep works of the imagination. After a “toss up,” the two men [...]
Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations Sam Weller, ed., (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, December 2014) One of the hardest things I’ve had to assess in my professional life as a historian and a biographer is just how much to take seriously in a person’s life. I consider, pass, and render judgments on a moment-by-moment basis! [...]
Few things reveal the degraded state of “conservatism” in America more than the recent, seven-minute exchange between Bill O’Reilly and George Will. What the two fought about really matters very little. To set the context, suffice it to state the debate had to do with the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life and how well Mr. [...]
Since the appearance of John Garth’s excellent Tolkien and the Great War in 2003, a number of scholars and writers have explored the role and influence of war on the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and other members of the Inklings. In reviewing Mr. Garth’s book when it came out, I noted that the [...]
While my memories might verge on the edge of fuzzy nostalgia from time to time, I remember quite clearly what the women and men of the 1970s did, said, and believed in small-town American neighborhoods. In those years, I absolutely loved reading (and researching and writing), but I also loved running, biking, and exploring. I [...]
When Human Events asked Russell Kirk to define “conservatism” only months into Ronald Reagan’s first presidential term, the grandfather of American conservatism paused, pensively, and answered only with some reluctance. I hesitate to call it a movement because it has never been asserted. There is no national conservative party. There are many conservative organizations but [...]
I have few regrets in my life. At least major ones. Of course, there are always things I could have done differently. And, though some of my life has been pretty rocky, especially childhood, I have had it pretty good. I have a great family, I have a solid and fulfilling career, and I get [...]
While anyone who knows anything about C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, or Owen Barfield knows of the existence of the Inklings, the group remains nearly impossible to define. Even the members of the group could not identify exactly what it was or what it meant. By the mid 1940s, Lewis defined it as a [...]
One of the most interesting developments of the post-Bush years has been the resurgence of the popularity of the term “progressivism.” With that popularity has come, of course, a resurgence of the ideas traditionally associated with progressivism, though highly sanitized. Some very good and well-intentioned scholars and commentators—who in general are NOT aligned with the [...]
Over the past year, good Americans have been fighting the changes that the Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. History standardized tests have made and are in the process of making. Most fights have been highly localized, generally at the county level. While some of these conflicts have made national news, most have stayed isolated and reported [...]
I consider myself a rather devout humanist. And, for better or worse, I do mean “devout.” Depending on my mood, I would argue that I am as taken with and as loyal to humanism as I am with my Christianity. Though I would never compare myself to St. Augustine, I certainly understand his detour from [...]
This weekend, I completed The Silmarillion. Not my first time. In fact, I have read The Silmarillion so many times since the fall of 1977, I have no idea what number of reading I’m actually on. Eight times? Nine? Ten? It was the first J.R.R. Tolkien I had ever encountered, even before The Hobbit or [...]
The twentieth century witnessed an assault on a number of once fine words, often hollowing out the traditional meanings and filling them with sheer refuse. Myth, in the twentieth century, became lie. Love became lust. Another such word, lost in the confusion of our present whirligig of post-modern life, is humanism. To even those who [...]
Neil Peart, Far and Near: On Days Like These (Toronto: ECW Press, 2014) One of our greatest living essayists in the English language, Canadian Neil Peart moves relentlessly through his life, breathing the rarefied air of excellence well- chased, and across varied cultural and natural landscapes, anywhere and everywhere to be discovered or rediscovered. An [...]