A Specialist in the American South: Eugene Genovese

By |2014-02-24T16:43:45-06:00July 3rd, 2012|Categories: Books, History, Sean Busick|Tags: , |

Eugene Genovese is one of the foremost American historians. A former Marxist, he is often branded a conservative—”a label applied to me frequently these days by people who understand nothing,” he wrote in 1994. Though he may eschew being labeled a conservative Genovese admits to having always admired much in conservative thought while being a [...]

The Proper Role of Military Power in a Republic?

By |2016-11-04T19:19:05-05:00May 3rd, 2012|Categories: American Republic, Foreign Affairs, Military, Republicanism, W. Winston Elliott III|Tags: |

What is the proper role of military power for a Republic? Is it the role of a Republic to maintain a large military presence in foreign lands? For what purpose would a Republic expend large amounts of blood and treasure to promote "democracy" in far away nations? What does this say in relation to countries, [...]

Why is Ideology Attractive?

By |2019-05-23T12:44:49-05:00April 2nd, 2012|Categories: American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Friedrich Hayek, Ideology, Russell Kirk, Tyranny|Tags: , |

To what end were 205 million human persons—created in the Image of God—murdered in the twentieth century, one must ask? And, why did millions more suffer for being simply human persons, unique, unfathomable, unrepeatable? The answer, unfortunately, is not an easy one, and very few scholars—historians, philosophers, or theologians—have attempted to answer this question. In [...]

The Achievement of Irving Babbitt

By |2014-01-24T11:39:17-06:00February 22nd, 2012|Categories: Conservatism, Irving Babbitt, Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Tags: , |

Irving Babbitt To define Irving Babbitt’s central view of life, from which radiate all his other views—of letters, of education, of society—I commence by quoting not his own words, but those of a different writer—one whom he would not have approved. For in reading Bertrand Russell’s recent autobiographical volume Portraits from Memory, I [...]

Platonic Elements and the Composition of the Universe

By |2016-02-14T16:01:09-06:00February 13th, 2012|Categories: Communio, Liberal Learning, Stratford Caldecott|Tags: |

But what are the four (or five) elements that T.S. Eliot was so interested in (see previous post)? The idea that the world is composed of just a handful of basic elements is common to all the great traditions, and in both the Egyptian, Greek and Indian traditions these elements are given the names Earth, Air, [...]

Elements in T.S. Eliot

By |2016-02-14T16:01:09-06:00February 11th, 2012|Categories: Benjamin Lockerd, Communio, Liberal Learning, Stratford Caldecott, T.S. Eliot|Tags: |

An important book by Benjamin G. Lockerd Jr, Aethereal Rumours: T.S. Eliot's Physics and Poetics, does for The Waste Land and the Four Quartets something of what Michael Ward does for the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis in Planet Narnia. In his book, Michael Ward shows that each of the seven tales of Narnia was intended [...]

A 2,000 Year Old Man Testifies on Government Debt

By |2014-01-26T16:59:06-06:00January 13th, 2012|Categories: Economics, Political Economy, Stephen Masty|Tags: |

Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Chairman: I hope you all had a pleasant lunch. These hearings of the United States House Committee on Financial Services are now called to order. Mister Benjamin Levine, thank you for coming here. Are you The Wandering Jew? Levine: Depends. Barney Frank (D-MA): Mister Chairman, please insert into the record that The [...]

A Useful, New Introduction to the Inherited Tradition of Political Ideas

By |2014-02-18T14:21:17-06:00December 27th, 2011|Categories: Books, Lee Cheek, Politics|Tags: |

Spellman, W. M.  A Short History of Western Political Thought (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011). In this readable and succinct volume, Spellman (University of North Carolina, Asheville) provides an introduction to the evolution of political ideas that have shaped the West.  The author synthesizes a tremendous body of historical and philosophical sources into an accessible [...]

Economic Policy and the Road to Serfdom: The Watershed of 1913

By |2014-02-03T19:52:21-06:00October 26th, 2011|Categories: Brian Domitrovic, Economics, Political Economy|Tags: , |

The following essay is adapted from the book Back on the Road to Serfdom: The Resurgence of Statism, edited by Thomas E. Woods Jr. (ISI Books, 2011). We are perhaps apt to forget that during the Cold War, it was generally conceded that the Soviet Union had a higher rate of economic growth than the [...]

Why Conservatives Should Embrace Sarah Palin

By |2017-06-23T15:17:10-05:00December 9th, 2010|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Conservatism|Tags: , |

by Anthony Williams Sarah Palin Much derision has been heaped on Governor Sarah Palin since she accepted John McCain’s invitation to run for vice president, from the right and the left, but I think both sides make too much of her mistakes and underestimate her strengths. I think both see that her public [...]

The Problem of an Ill-informed Citizenry

By |2017-06-23T15:15:17-05:00December 9th, 2010|Categories: Foreign Affairs|Tags: , |

Our press is complacent (fat and well-fed), our world leaders are arrogant, and accordingly our citizenry is horribly ill-informed. Because we’ve been asked to be brief, my response to the leaks are offered in a way to get the conversation going and thus will be twofold: a general response and then some thoughts about a [...]

Social Unrest and the Coming Reset

By |2017-06-20T14:17:50-05:00November 13th, 2010|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Conservatism, Government, John Barnes|Tags: |

I remember sitting in the lobby of my college dormitory stupefied, watching the World Trade Organization riots tearing apart downtown Seattle in 1999. Twenty-five hundred miles away, the view was surreal. My hometown had become a war zone. Familiar streets and shops, normally bustling with lively but peaceful activity, formed the backdrop for chanting crowds, [...]

Go to Top