About Stephen Tonsor

Stephen Tonsor (1923-2014) was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Michigan. He was the author of Tradition and Reform in Education (Open Court, 1974) and published essays and reviews in such publications as Victorian Studies, Journal of Modern History, The Catholic Historical Review, and The Review of Politics.

The Siren Song of Anarchy in Western Art & Literature

By |2019-09-19T13:10:40-05:00January 15th, 2018|Categories: Art, Christian Humanism, Culture, History, Revolution, Timeless Essays|

The image of reason cut adrift and order overthrown are universal symbols of enormous and compelling power. Each of us sees in the dethronement of discipline and order an immediate personal advantage… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Stephen Tonsor as he explores the history of aestetic [...]

The Siren Song of Anarchy in Western Art and Literature

By |2017-03-21T13:37:16-05:00January 19th, 2017|Categories: Art, Christian Humanism, Culture, Featured, History, Revolution|

The image of reason cut adrift and order overthrown are universal symbols of enormous and compelling power. Each of us sees in the dethronement of discipline and order an immediate personal advantage… Eugene Delacroix, “Death of Sardanapalus” Henry Adams describes his famous autobiography with a charming picture of the ancestral household at Quincy. [...]

Historical Confrontation & the Birth of Culture

By |2019-08-22T11:22:45-05:00October 5th, 2016|Categories: Books, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Featured, History, Western Civilization|

The Dynamics of World History, by Christopher Dawson, edited by John J. Mulloy. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956) None of the disciplines has been more adversely affected by the increasing fragmentation and social dissolution which has afflicted our liberal civilization than has the study of history. The pursuit of the Fact, isolated from tradition [...]

What Manner of Men are Conservatives?

By |2016-07-15T23:22:04-05:00July 2nd, 2016|Categories: Alexis de Tocqueville, Conservatism, Featured, Modernity|

Writing with all the Romantic appreciation of the dialectic of opposites and polarities, Walt Whitman said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” Whitman and the Romantics expressed eloquently and frequently the profound observation that the essence of life is polarity, opposition, and contradiction, and that [...]

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