Melvin E. “Mel” Bradford (May 8, 1934 – March 3, 1993) was a conservative political commentator and Professor of Literature at the University of Dallas. He was the author of “A Better Guide than Reason: Federalists and Anti-Federalists”, “Original Intentions: On the Making and Ratification of the Constitution”, “Founding Fathers: Brief Life of the Framers of the Constitution”, and “The Reactionary Imperative: Essays Literary & Political.”

Calhoun: The Oracle of the South

By |2016-04-15T10:03:58-05:00February 26th, 2012|Categories: Books, John C. Calhoun, M. E. Bradford, South|Tags: |

The Essential Calhoun: Selections from Writings, Speeches, and Letters. Edited with an Introduction by Clyde Wilson. Foreword by Russell Kirk. The contemporary academic interpretation of John Caldwell Calhoun is like the contemporary academic response to anything and anyone thoroughly and unmistakably Southern: a politically correct caricature, both as to motives and with regard to the meaning of [...]

A Few Rude and Not So Rude Reflections on America

By |2014-01-17T11:06:59-06:00October 21st, 2011|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, M. E. Bradford|

Some observations, rude and otherwise, from two weeks of traveling across the United States. I’m at the end of seven weeks of intense traveling. Frankly, I’m tired and more than a bit cranky. But, of course, I brought the travel on myself entirely. For what it’s worth, here are a few observations from my adventures—focused [...]

The Older Rhetoric Revisited: Hugh Blair and the Public Virtue of Style

By |2016-04-15T10:03:58-05:00July 26th, 2011|Categories: Books, Culture, M. E. Bradford, South|Tags: |

Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, by Hugh Blair. Edited with a Critical Introduction by Harold F. Harding. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965. Two Vols., 496 and 566 pp.  One of the most successful of all nineteenth-century textbooks was Hugh Blair’s weighty Rhetoric. Between 1783 (the date of their first publication) and 1911 (the [...]

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