About David Hein

David Hein is Distinguished Teaching Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal and coauthor of Archbishop Fisher, 1945-1961: Church, State and World.

George Washington & the Patience of Power

By |2023-12-13T19:27:51-06:00December 13th, 2023|Categories: American Founding, Christianity, George Washington, History, Timeless Essays, Virtue, War|

In his courage and perseverance throughout the Revolution, George Washington revealed his reliance on patience—and feelingly used the word when referring to his men at Valley Forge. In contemporary American society, the relationship between patience and power is often wary and distant: If people have power, then they won’t have to wait. Recently, however, these two [...]

The Great Books of the Great War

By |2023-12-03T15:15:08-06:00December 3rd, 2023|Categories: Books, Literature, World War I|

Reconsidered, some classic works of the Great War challenge our customary apprehension of the literature of this period and prompt fresh thinking about these writings. The war and the widespread disruptions of the years following it stirred up questions about meaning and value, about ties between the past and the future, about the mystery and [...]

Notes Toward the Definition of Honor

By |2023-12-03T15:14:34-06:00November 3rd, 2023|Categories: Alexis de Tocqueville, American Republic, Christianity, Honor|

Honor is a catch-all term that is closely allied with the cardinal virtues: justice as fair play, fortitude, prudence, and temperance. Recent events and public responses demonstrate that the concept of honor still has some life left in it and a role to play for the commonweal, on behalf of the worthy traditions and institutions [...]

Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men”: The Agony of Will

By |2023-04-23T17:24:24-05:00April 23rd, 2023|Categories: Books, Imagination, Literature, Morality, Timeless Essays|

All the King’s Men (1946): It’s as if Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) wrote this classic American tale principally for college and university students. With a solid foundation in the liberal arts, they will recognize the philosophical and psychological theories that a central character, Jack Burden, has in mind when he transforms them into excuses for [...]

Writing as a Moral Act

By |2023-03-26T20:37:13-05:00March 26th, 2023|Categories: Civilization, Timeless Essays|

Success in writing requires the virtue of temperance, self-mastery, which refers to an internal action less dreary and passive than mere abstinence. Temperance means disciplining oneself in order to realize one’s greatest potential. Writing is a moral act, I often tell my undergraduate students. At first, naturally enough, they are puzzled by this claim. Not [...]

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: An Appreciation

By |2023-12-02T11:01:23-06:00July 31st, 2021|Categories: Anglicanism, Books, Christian Living, Christianity, Religion|

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer is an important cultural artifact, whose influence on English language and literature rivals that of the Authorized Version of the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. You will recall Parson Thwackum in Henry Fielding’s classic novel History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749). Mr. (never, in proper ecclesiastical usage, Reverend) Thwackum [...]

Samuel Johnson: A Guide for the Perplexed Undergraduate

By |2021-01-14T09:24:27-06:00January 12th, 2021|Categories: Education, Truth|

Samuel Johnson unfolds his thoughts not on dry philosophical subjects but on practical themes: the common virtues needful in everyday living and learning and behaving. His words are both honorable and useful, and he is a valuable companion on the undergraduate journey. The following is an advising memorandum addressed to undergraduate students. Perplexed and undecided: the [...]

George Washington and the Patience of Power

By |2020-03-01T02:47:33-06:00February 21st, 2020|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, George Washington, History, Timeless Essays, Virtue, War|

What enabled George Washington to be so different from other victorious commanders? He had little innate patience but held immense power. How—and where—did he learn patience? Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join David Hein, as he considers the virtues that endowed George Washington with perseverance and strength [...]

Studies in Virtue: George Washington & George Marshall

By |2022-09-29T11:30:57-05:00January 16th, 2019|Categories: American Founding, Character, George Washington, Leadership, Virtue|

What George Washington and George Marshall have to say to us has to do most of all with the ethical claims of the virtue of duty. Teachers would ably fulfill their calling if they convey to their students their conviction that civil society is best understood and entered into as a partnership in every virtue, [...]

The Marshall Plan: Conservative Reform as a Weapon of War

By |2021-05-26T16:38:50-05:00March 20th, 2018|Categories: Cold War, Conservatism, History, Politics, Russell Kirk, War|

As a weapon in the Cold War, the Marshall Plan contributed to the strategic goal of maintaining a balance of power between East and West and thereby containing the Soviet Empire long enough for it to collapse under the weight of its internal contradictions. If students recall anything about the European Recovery Program (the Marshall [...]

Frederic Manning’s “Her Privates We”: A Mystery of the Great War

By |2023-03-21T08:56:42-05:00December 22nd, 2017|Categories: History, Literature, Roger Scruton, War, World War I|

Neither a pacifist’s nor a militant’s novel, Her Privates We is praiseworthy both for its unforgettable characters and for its compelling, if necessarily tentative, exploration of this mystery of personhood under extreme pressure. Her Privates We by Frederic Manning (272 pages, Serpent’s Tail, 1999) Almost everyone enjoys a good detective story, and Her Privates We is [...]

Ronald Reagan & George C. Marshall: A Cold War Affinity

By |2022-03-10T22:15:10-06:00December 20th, 2017|Categories: Cold War, Conservatism, Europe, Featured, History, Politics, Ronald Reagan, War|

Both George C. Marshall and Ronald Reagan were “conservative internationalists”: peace-through-strength realists who did not lose sight of their democratic principles, and who engaged with other nations to achieve not only American security and prosperity, but also a greater measure of freedom and justice in the world. Within this past year occurred both the thirtieth [...]

“Ride the High Country”: An Elegy on Leadership

By |2023-03-21T12:41:13-05:00December 15th, 2017|Categories: Culture, Film, History, Leadership, Statesman, Virtue|

For students of leadership for a just society, the movie “Ride the High Country” crystallizes beliefs and codes of behavior worth studying, affirming, and claiming today. If you want to know what made the statesman and military leader George Catlett Marshall (1880–1959) great, then watch Ride the High Country (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), and you will receive a taste of [...]

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