The Sacrificial Love of Saint Maximilian Kolbe

By |2023-08-13T16:57:49-05:00August 13th, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Catholicism, Christianity, St. Maximilian Kolbe, Timeless Essays|

As the man pleaded his case, Father Maximilian Kolbe came forward and offered his life for the one pleading. The German commandant of Auschwitz—probably rather shocked—agreed, and Kolbe, with nine others, stripped naked and entered the 3-foot high concrete bunker. As Hillsdale students approach my desk on the fourth floor of Delp Hall, several things [...]

Trail of Tears

By |2023-08-09T15:05:26-05:00August 9th, 2023|Categories: American Republic, American West, Bradley J. Birzer, History, Senior Contributors|

One of the perennial problems in nineteenth-century American history was the so-called “Indian Problem.” And, a problem it was. American whites either idealized or demonized the Indians, usually depending on how far one lived from native tribes. The natives—understandably—did everything possible to protect their own hearth and homes, and many American reluctantly respected them for [...]

Early Mormonism

By |2023-07-26T15:53:28-05:00July 26th, 2023|Categories: American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, History, Religion, Senior Contributors|

Unsure of Indian country in the West, Joseph Smith headed back east, purchasing land on the Mississippi River, north of Quincy, Illinois, in 1839, where the Mormons did exceedingly well. By 1844, the settlement of Nauvoo had become the largest town in Illinois with more than 10,000 people. Smith was at the pinnacle of his [...]

The Mountain Men

By |2023-07-17T19:22:35-05:00July 17th, 2023|Categories: American Republic, American West, Bradley J. Birzer, History, Senior Contributors|

Mountain men carved paths into the western wilderness, forging the way for American merchants and settlers who also looked to the West for economic sustenance and personal autonomy. In popular and literary mythology, the figure of the mountain man became a symbol of the independence and power of the individual American in the West. White [...]

Burke on the Inhumanity of the French Revolution

By |2023-07-13T21:23:13-05:00July 13th, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Edmund Burke, History, Politics, Revolution, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

Whatever its own stated purposes and desired ends, the French Revolution never sought to better the condition of humanity or even of France. The Revolutionaries, as Edmund Burke stressed, were radicals, seeking civil war not only in France, but also in all of Christendom. The grand Anglo-Irish statesman, Edmund Burke (1729-1797) spent much of his [...]

A Radically Conservative Interpretation: Jon Lauck’s “The Good Country”

By |2023-06-14T12:36:55-05:00June 14th, 2023|Categories: American Republic, American West, Books, Bradley J. Birzer, History, Senior Contributors|

Jon Lauck's "The Good Country" is an extraordinary book, a celebration of the good, the true, and the beautiful as well as a revelation of the deepest flaws in American history. One comes away from reading it with immense energy to follow its creatively conservative paths. The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, [...]

Ray Bradbury: Talisman of the Space Age

By |2023-06-05T16:29:55-05:00June 5th, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Literature, Ray Bradbury, Senior Contributors|

By the late 1960s, Ray Bradbury had channeled most of his creative energy away from his fiction and into his promotion of American space exploration and into his often-frustrated Hollywood dreams. When delving into fiction, he would return time and again to the safe harbors of his early successes. Jonathan R. Eller, Bradbury Beyond Apollo [...]

Ray Bradbury: From Prolific Author to Voice of the Space Age

By |2023-05-30T15:39:51-05:00May 29th, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Literature, Ray Bradbury, Senior Contributors|

As America and Russia continued to progress into space, Ray Bradbury saw the efforts as a new phase in man’s spiritual consciousness. God, Bradbury declared, wanted man to approach the universe. The encounter with space was  a “Cry of the Cosmos.” As such, science fiction as a genre was entering not just respectability, but the [...]

President James Monroe and Republican Virtue

By |2023-04-27T16:29:11-05:00April 27th, 2023|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Character, Government, History, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

Whatever his failings as an imaginative thinker, President James Monroe’s own convictions were rooted deeply in the spirit and the letter of the U.S. Constitution. As he entered the White House in March 1817, he had little (well, less) use for James Madison’s newfound love of nationalism. While he entered the presidency too late to [...]

A Quick & Dirty Guide to the Middle Ages

By |2023-04-23T17:38:55-05:00April 23rd, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christopher Dawson, Culture, Featured, History, Timeless Essays, Western Civilization|

The Medieval Church culturally unified Christendom through a common language, Latin, and a common liturgy, tying men together with other men of their own time, but also with the whole communion of saints. Petrarch, ca. 1350, first employed the term “Medieval” to argue that his time (ca. 1350) had advanced beyond the so-called “dark ages.” [...]

Let Us Remember Lexington and Concord!

By |2023-04-18T15:02:34-05:00April 18th, 2023|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Memorial Day, Timeless Essays|

Outnumbering the Lexington militia nearly ten to one, the British easily won the skirmish. But, symbolically, they lost. For at the moment the first Lexingtonian died, the American Republic was born. British Major Pitcarne took six companies of an advance team to scout out Lexington, Massachusetts, early morning, April 19, 1775. Behind him marched nearly [...]

The Brilliant Darkness of a Friday Afternoon

By |2023-04-06T17:17:25-05:00April 6th, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christianity, Easter, Friendship, Gospel Reflection, Love, Timeless Essays|

Not only did Jesus manifest Himself as the Logos so long desired in the pagan West on that Friday afternoon, but He also manifested Himself as the Christ, the true and eternal king. In some mysterious way, it was the death on Friday that revealed all of this, not the resurrection on Sunday. As Jesus [...]

Ray Bradbury’s First 33 Years

By |2023-05-30T15:27:28-05:00March 20th, 2023|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Literature, Ray Bradbury, Senior Contributors|

In the first volume of his three-volume biography, "Becoming Ray Bradbury," Jonathan R. Eller draws upon his friendship with Bradbury as well as upon a myriad of primary sources to write one of the best biographies of the famous author that I’ve yet encountered. Becoming Ray Bradbury, by Jonathan R. Eller (360 pages, University of [...]

History & the New Humanism

By |2023-03-07T08:14:48-06:00March 6th, 2023|Categories: History, Humanism and Conservatism|

Historical consciousness and the attendant self-knowledge show what man has become, what he has made of himself, not only through his deeds but also, and more importantly, through the contemplation of what he has been. Together these insights potentially constitute the foundation of a new humanism, encouraging us to turn backward and inward rather than [...]

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