The Achievement of Russell Kirk

By |2021-05-27T12:58:09-05:00December 31st, 2017|Categories: Books, Conservatism, History, Imagination, Moral Imagination, Russell Kirk|Tags: , |

According to Russell Kirk, the moral imagination is the power of knowing man, despite his weaknesses and sinful nature, as a moral being, meant for eternity. It recognizes that human beings, after all, are created in the image of God. Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology by W. Wesley McDonald (264 pages, University of Missouri, [...]

The Conservative Constitution

By |2016-03-05T23:33:57-06:00March 5th, 2016|Categories: Books, Constitution, Russell Kirk|Tags: , |

The Conservative Constitution by Russell Kirk A nation’s constitution can be created overnight, claimed Clinton Rossiter incautiously at a symposium over thirty years ago. Witness, he continued, the guiding instruments composed by several European countries shortly after each of the two world wars. Present at that same symposium, Russell Kirk answered Rossiter’s statement with a [...]

Thomas Jefferson: A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity

By |2016-08-02T09:26:35-05:00August 24th, 2014|Categories: Thomas Jefferson|Tags: , |

Thomas Jefferson: A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity by Alf J. Mapp, Jr. Reviewing selected letters of Edmund Burke in the American Spectator in 1985, Professor Charles R. Kesler claimed that American conservatives attempting to propagate Burke’s principles “have always faced an embarassing obstacle: namely the almost complete lack of a Burkean tradition in America.” [...]

Russell Kirk: Toward a Renewed Civil Social Order

By |2020-06-01T18:36:53-05:00June 21st, 2014|Categories: Community, Conservatism, Russell Kirk|Tags: |

Russell Kirk recognized that conservatism most closely honors the way men and women ought to act among their neighbors in community and in matters of transcendent faith. Rooted in the small community, conservatism is homely and humble, and it makes for respectful peace within families and among neighbors. It is brought about by example and [...]

Reassessing Russell Kirk: Three Critical Views

By |2021-04-28T15:36:17-05:00April 27th, 2014|Categories: Books, Conservatism, Featured, Gerald Russello, Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind|Tags: , , |

Russell Kirk understood that politics was determined by deep cultural and intellectual influences that included the arts, literature, philosophy, religion, and community life. In short, he believed that it was not by politics alone that American and Western civilization would be restored. A Critical Biography of a Conservative Mind by James E. Person, Jr. Russell [...]

Russell Kirk: A Worthy Tribute

By |2014-02-20T16:00:36-06:00November 20th, 2013|Categories: Russell Kirk|Tags: , |

The Unbought Grace of Life: Essays in Honor of Russell Kirk, edited by James E. Person Jr. This Festschrift was in galleys when Russell Kirk‘s health began failing. On learning of Kirk‘s decline, Sherwood Sugden photocopied the galleys and mailed them to Mecosta. The editor, James Person, a close friend of the Kirks, made the long trek [...]

A Critical Biography: Russell Kirk, A Man in Full

By |2014-01-31T14:18:53-06:00November 9th, 2013|Categories: Russell Kirk|Tags: , |

Russell Kirk: A Critical Biography of a Conservative Mind, by James E. Person, Jr., Madison Books, Lanham, MA, 1999 In the book before us, James E. Person, Jr. has sought “to craft a critical primer” on the thought of Russell Kirk—a man whose 50 years of professional life yielded 32 books, 800 essays and reviews, [...]

The Legacy of C. S. Lewis

By |2016-02-12T15:28:33-06:00December 26th, 2012|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Literature, Permanent Things|Tags: , |

On Friday, November 22, 1963, at about the same time as President John F. Kennedy prepared to enter the black limousine that would take him through downtown Dallas to his violent death, another life was coming to a far less dramatic close across the Atlantic in England. It was late afternoon in the village of [...]

The Transcendent in Tolkien

By |2019-01-03T18:11:24-06:00December 14th, 2012|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christianity, J.R.R. Tolkien, Russell Kirk|Tags: , |

J. R. R. Tolkien ’s Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth by Bradley J. Birzer Much has been written of J.R.R. Tolkien’s accomplishment during the past half century, with critics struggling to understand the powerful grip exercised by the English fantasist’s writings upon readers. Some Tolkien-focused criticism has been enlightening, much has been repetitive, and a small [...]

The Sharpening of the Conservative Mind

By |2013-12-24T10:17:43-06:00November 16th, 2012|Categories: Alexis de Tocqueville, Books, Bruce Frohnen, Conservatism, Edmund Burke|Tags: , |

Virtue and the Promise of Conservatism: The Legacy of Burke & Tocqueville, by Bruce Frohnen In his role as a professor of English literature, Thomas Howard sometimes gives his class a list of the following words: majesty, magnanimity, valor, courtesy, grace, chastity, virginity, nobility, splendor, ceremony, taboo, mystery, purity. The reaction he gets is quite [...]

The Legacies of Edmund Burke and Robert Frost

By |2015-04-25T23:44:30-05:00March 4th, 2012|Categories: Books, Edmund Burke, Featured, Peter Stanlis, Robert Frost|Tags: , |

James E. Person, Jr. interviews Peter J. Stanlis Peter Stanlis’s groundbreaking work, Edmund Burke and the Natural Law (1958), forever changed the way scholars view Burke’s work. Mr. Stanlis (1919-2011) placed Burke firmly in the tradition of Western natural law reasoning. Mr. Stanlis has also published a number of essays and articles on Frost, including Robert Frost: [...]

Conservation as a Conservative Concern

By |2017-07-18T15:20:18-05:00June 3rd, 2011|Categories: Agrarianism, Books, Conservation, Conservatism, Wendell Berry|Tags: , |

In one of his syndicated columns published during the 1970s, the founder of The University Bookman famously wrote, “There is nothing more conservative than conservation.” Russell Kirk, considered one of the founders of post-war conservatism—that supposedly heartless, devil-catch-the-hindmost view of life that (again, supposedly) considers nature a nuisance to be tamed or destroyed—was a great admirer of [...]

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