This book examines key twentieth-century philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who began their careers with commitments to the political left only later to reappraise or reject them. Their reevaluation of their own previous positions reveals not only the change in their own thought but also the societal changes in the culture, economics, and politics to which they were reacting. By exploring the evolution of the political thought of these philosophers, this book draws connection...

In the 21st century, political debates appear to center on fundamental conflicts between “the people” and “elites.” Most of these discussions emphasize strategies to protect and empower the oppressed masses against a predatory ruling class. Much of classical political thought, however, was written from an aristocratic point of view: that is, it ascribed paramount importance to the question of elite formation. Assuming inequality as a permanent feature of human associations, what virtues wo...

America has seen faith-based initiatives and “the audacity of hope” in twenty-first-century politics, but few participants in our political scene have invoked the other Christian virtue of charity as a guiding principle. Abraham Lincoln extolled the merit of “loving thy neighbor as thyself,” especially as a critique of the hypocrisy of slavery, but a discussion of Christian love is noticeably absent from today’s debates about religion and democracy.In this provocative book, Grant H...

The Medium Is Still the Message presents Marshall McLuhan, history's foremost philosopher of media, as the indispensable guide for understanding the impact of technologies. McLuhan (1911-1980) shows that media are not simply tools of communication: they create new environments with transformational effects on politics, economics, culture, identity, religion, and nature. Grant N. Havers argues that McLuhan's key insight--"the medium is the message"...

Leo Strauss and Anglo-American Democracy critically interprets Strauss's political philosophy from a conservative perspective. Most mainstream readers of Strauss have either condemned him from the Left as an extreme right-wing opponent of liberal democracy or celebrated him from the Right as a traditional defender of Western civilization. Rejecting both portrayals, Grant N. Havers shifts the debate beyond the conventional parameters stating that S...

This book analyzes Eric Voegelin’s scholarly works from the 1950s and early 1960s and examines the ways in which these works are relevant to the twenty-first century political environment. The collection of essays evaluated in this book cover a wide array of topics that were of great curiosity sixty years ago and still relevant in today’s society. The authors in this volume demonstrate that Voegelin’s erudition on topics such as revolutionary change, ideological fervor, industrialization, ...

This anthology provides detailed examinations of the major themes and perspectives of the paleoconservatives as political thinkers and activists. A long forgotten and persistently disregarded group within the American Right, but their ideas show a remarkable staying power. Paleoconservatives, as this anthology undertakes to show, have been among the most original and insightful representatives of the Right over the last thirty years but because of internal quarrels and their conspicuous de...

In the first half of the twentieth century, the rationalist tide had reached its high mark in the arts, politics, and work. But the Holocaust, the Gulag, and other failures have dimmed the popularity of rationalism. However, the evidence of those practical failures would not have been as convincing as it was if not for the existence of a theoretical diagnosis of the malady. This book compares and contrasts the ideas of some of the leading twentieth-century critics of rationalism: Hans-Geor...

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and radio host Mark R. Levin comes a searing plea for a return to America’s most sacred values.In Rediscovering Americanism, Mark R. Levin revisits the founders’ warnings about the perils of overreach by the federal government and concludes that the men who created our country would be outraged and disappointed to see where we've ended up.Levin returns to the impassioned question he's explored in e...

For constitutionalists, regulation of hate speech violates the First Amendment and damages a free society. Waldron rejects this view, and makes the case that hate speech should be regulated as part of a commitment to human dignity and to inclusion and respect for members of vulnerable minorities.

Whether examining election outcomes, the legal status of terrorism suspects, or if (or how) people can be sentenced to death, a judge in a modern democracy assumes a role that raises some of the most contentious political issues of our day. But do judges even have a role beyond deciding the disputes before them under law? What are the criteria for judging the justices who write opinions for the United States Supreme Court or constitutional courts in other democracies? These are the questio...

An essential volume of essays commissioned by the American Spectator and edited by the philosopher Roger Scruton, Liberty and Civilization examines the intellectual and spiritual traditions of our belief in individual liberty, from its Judeo Christian origins on through Enlightenment philosophy. As we are confronted by belligerent atheism at home and jihadist Islam abroad, Liberty and Civilization is an invaluable tool for understanding why it is critical that we defend the cultural, relig...