Bradley J Birzer – författare

Emerging from two decades of the Great Depression and the New Deal and facing the rise of radical ideologies abroad, the American Right seemed beaten, broken, and adrift in the early 1950s. Although conservative luminaries such as T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley Jr., Leo Strauss, and Eric Voegelin all published important works at this time, none of their writings would match the influence of Russell Kirk's 1953 masterpiece The Conservative Mind. This seminal book became the intellectual touchstone for a reinvigorated movement and began a sea change in Americans' attitudes toward traditionalism.In Russell Kirk, Bradley J. Birzer investigates the life and work of the man known as the founder of postwar conservatism in America. Drawing on papers and diaries that have only recently become available to the public, Birzer presents a thorough exploration of Kirk's intellectual roots and development. The first to examine the theorist's prolific writings on literature and culture, this magisterial study illuminates Kirk's lasting influence on figures such as T. S. Eliot, William F. Buckley Jr., and Senator Barry Goldwater -- who persuaded a reluctant Kirk to participate in his campaign for the presidency in 1964.While several books examine the evolution of postwar conservatism and libertarianism, surprisingly few works explore Kirk's life and thought in detail. This engaging biography not only offers a fresh and thorough assessment of one of America's most influential thinkers but also reasserts his humane vision in an increasingly inhumane time.

The Inklings were, to be sure, the most important literary group of the twentieth-century, rivaling and surpassing the much touted Bloomsbury Group.  They influenced not just the direction of literature—especially through fantasy, science fiction, and biography—but the very direction of western civilization itself.  It would not be too much of an exaggeration to note that former Communist countries rebelled using the language of the Inklings, but that the free west—from the United Kingdom to Italy to the United States—has been deeply influenced by the group as well.Though much has been written about the Inklings, almost all Inklings scholarship has revolved around the truly brilliant figure of C.S. Lewis.  While Lewis was critical to the formation and maintenance of the group, he was not alone.  In particular, J.R.R. Tolkien’s larger mythology, out of which The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion arose, informed the group, as did Owen Barfield’s path-breaking senior thesis at Oxford, Poetic Diction.As such, this book focuses on the Inklings from Tolkien’s point of view.  As with Lewis, Barfield, Charles Williams, and Lord David Cecil, Tolkien wanted the group to serve as a bardic defense of Western civilization, Socrates through Dante.  Having fought in the trenches of World War I, the Inklings were more than aware of the fragility of civilization.  They witnessed not just the first world war, but the rise of fascism, national socialism, and communism, as well as sent their sons off to fight World War II.  Perhaps, just perhaps, myth and legend might reawaken the West to what it could be and to what it once aspired.