Jacques Barzun, 1907–2012

by | Nov 5, 2012

“Le style est l’homme,” wrote the Comte de Buffon. Applied to Jacques Barzun, Buffon’s statement reveals a man at once elegant but unpretentious, a man both sophisticated and humane. Born on November 30, 1907 in Créteil, France, Jacques Barzun was early initiated into...

The Gifts of the Present

by | Nov 4, 2012

Berkeley-Paris Express: A Lively Memoir of Studying Classical Music and Painting by Webster Young. Santa Fe, N.M.: Editions D’Auteurs, 2012, 347 pages, $14.50; Kindle Edition, $9.95. In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien famously wrote that God made men and women...

The Unknown Hegel

by | Nov 4, 2012

The Search for Historical Meaning: Hegel and the Postwar American Right by Paul Edward Gottfried. Dekalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986, Revised edition 2010. Paper, $24. Few prominent postwar conservative thinkers have credited Hegelian concepts...
The Living, the Dead, and the Living Dead

The Living, the Dead, and the Living Dead

by | Oct 31, 2012

Lord of the Hollow Dark by Russell Kirk. St. Martin’s Press, 1979. “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” —T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland October at Piety Hill in rural northern Michigan is a glorious thing. As the harvest comes to a close, nature’s grand finale...

About Edmund Burke

by | Oct 30, 2012

This is the entry on Edmund Burke in American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (ISI 2006). Entry by Peter J. Stanlis. © 2006 Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Used by permission. Edmund Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1729 and died in 1797 at his home in...
The Inaugural Conference

The Inaugural Conference

by | Oct 28, 2012

Mecosta, Michigan, May 2002 On May 10–12, 2002, the Edmund Burke Society of America hosted the first in its proposed series of annual academic conferences, “Fresh Perspectives on Burke Studies in Higher Education.” A distinguished group of Burke...

About the Edmund Burke Society

by | Oct 28, 2012

Committee President: Dr. Elizabeth R. Lambert Director: Dr. Ian Crowe Secretary: Dr. Steven P. Millies Treasurer: Dr. Jeffrey O. Nelson President Emeritus: Dr. Joseph L. Pappin III Reports A report from our inaugural May 2002 conference, “Fresh Perspectives on...

Kirk’s Ghostly Tales

by | Oct 28, 2012

Jeffrey D. Pearce recently guest edited two “lib guides”—thematic lists of reading resources—for the library of Everett Community College in Everett, Washington. In “Ghostly Sightings…And Other Scary Stories…”, Pearce links to Russell Kirk’s short story...

Glory and Indignity

by | Oct 21, 2012

John Randolph of Roanoke by David Johnson. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012 Cloth, 352 pages, $45. “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty, I hate equality.” Thus spoke John Randolph of Roanoke (1773–1833), one of the most curious, animated figures ever...

Sir Henry Sumner Maine on Democracy

by | Oct 21, 2012

Popular Government, by Henry Sumner Maine. Introduction by George W. Carey. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics [1885, 1976] [free online PDF edition at Liberty Fund]. It has been a good many years since the democratic political system, and all the principles upon which it...