Russell Kirk

Russell Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind and A Program for Conservatives, has been regarded as one of the foremost figures of the post-World War II revival in conservative thought. While numerous commentators on contemporary political thought have acknowledged his considerable influence on the substance and direction of American conservatism, no analysis of his social and political writing has dealt extensively with the philosophical foundations of his work. In this provocative study, W. Wesley McDonald examines those foundations and demonstrates their impact on the conservative intellectual movement that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Kirk played a pivotal role in drawing conservatism away from the laissez-faire principles of libertarianism and toward those of a traditional community grounded in a renewed appreciation of man's social and spiritual nature and the moral prerequisites of genuine liberty. In a humane social order, a community of spirit is fostered in which generations are bound together.,According to Kirk, this link is achieved through moral and social norms that transcend the particularities of time and place and, because they form the basis of genuine civilized existence, can only be neglected at great peril. These norms are reflected in religious dogmas, traditions, humane letters, social habit and custom, and prescriptive institutions and create the sources of the true community that is also the final end of politics. Although this study does not challenge Kirk's debts to a predominantly Catholic and Anglo-Catholic tradition of natural law, its focus is on his appeal to historical experience as the test of sound institutions. This aspect of his thought wasessential to Kirk's understanding of moral, cultural, and aesthetic norms and can be seen in his responses to American humanists Paul Elmer More and Irving Babbitt and to English and American romantic literature. Russell Kirk and

There is no better guide to this great British statesman than Russell Kirk. This book is both an accessible overview of an important thinker and an unsurpassed introduction to his thought.

How did American conservatism, little more than a collection of loosely related beliefs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, become a coherent political and social force in the 1960s? What political strategies originating during the decade enabled the modern conservative movement to flourish? And how did mainstream and extremist conservatives, frequently at odds over tactics and ideology, each play a role in reshaping the Republican Party? In the 1960s conservatives did nothing less than engineer their own revolution. A Time for Choosing tells the remarkable story behind this transformation. Where previous accounts of conservatism's rise tend to speed from 1964 through the start of the Reagan era in 1980, A Time for Choosing explores in dramatic detail how conservatives took immediate action following the Goldwater debacle. William F. Buckley, Jr.'s 1965 bid for Mayor of New York City and Reagan's 1966 California governor's campaign helped turn the tide for electoral conservatism. By decade's end, independent "splinter groups" vied for the right to bear the conservative standard into the next decade, demonstrating the movement's strength and vitality. Although conservative ideology was not created during the 1960s, its political components were. Here, then, is the story of the rise of the modern conservative movement. Provocative and beautifully written, A Time for Choosing is a book for anyone interested in politics and history in the postwar era.

In an examination of contemporary American culture--from literature to popular music--concerned with the restoration of Classical traditions, this work is comprised of a series of essays concerned with the still healthy vitality of America's Classical and Christian traditions, the errors of the current powers that be, and the way to cultural and political restoration.

This book calls for churches to offer an unapologetically Christian witness to a post-modern world. It asks whether we are witnessing--due to the triumph of the autonomous and unattached self--the complete destruction of those institutions and practices that once shaped human character toward fulfillment in goods larger than our own self-interest; the chief of these being the worship and service of God. The answer the book offers is that Christian existence can never be taken for granted so churches must seek to create a Christian culture that will offer the world a drastic alternative to its own cultureless existence. Among the ways the book suggests this task might be accomplished are the following: (1) by reinvigorating an often sentimental and anti-intellectual evangelicalism, (2) by developing a Christian understanding of church-based education, (3) by avoiding the twin dangers of conservatism and liberalism, (4) by focusing Christian worship on the beauty and holiness of God, (5) by understanding the relation of Christian marriage to Christian singleness, and (6) by stressing the dependence of Christian spirituality on Christian doctrine.

Including representative journals for the 20th and late 19th centuries, this book profiles the most significant conservative journals of the past century. From the rise of industrial capitalism, when laissez-faire conservatives praised bountiful America, to the end of the Cold War, these journals have covered a variety of topics from differing, sometimes even contradictory, points of view. Yet they speak to the richness and comprehensiveness of the conservative press in America. Together they provide a focused history of conservative thought in 20th Century America.