Modern Age

In spite of his six widely read novels, his two works of nonfiction (with their original contributions to the study of language and the human psyche), and his two national literary awards, Walker Percy remains a figure on the fringes of the American liter…

“Imagination rules the world,” Russell Kirk used to say.1 He meant that imagination is a force that molds the clay of our sentiments and understanding.2 It is not chiefly through calculations, formulas, and syllogisms, but by means of images, myths, and s…

The great Protestant historian Maurice Powicke once wrote that “the one definite thing that can be said of the Reformation in England is that it was an act of state.”

In 2000, the Chinese filmmaker Dai Sijie, who has lived in France since 1984, published a short novel in French, Balzac et la Petite Tailleuse chinoise.

The month of October 1926 included dates relating to two individuals who contributed mightily to the communal gaiety of the twentieth century.

Traditionalist writers suffer from a peculiar inclination toward nostalgia, although that characterization may be too forgiving.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Lord John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton’s reputation had become obscured.

On the surface, Hadley Arkes would seem to be nobody’s idea of a populist.

“The goodness of goodness and the badness of badness”—what in the world does that silly platitude mean?

As strange as it may sound, rock and roll is the conservative movement’s fraternal twin.

Can moral claims be true or false, or do they merely express personal feelings and cultural conditioning?

It may well strike many readers that the title of this essay declares a historical confusion.

I’d never seen a bird’s eye close before, Until the fine and clear September day A sparrow crashed into the glass and lay Where it had fallen, gaping to implore.

The night before our long-awaited jaunt, We kept a vigil, praying for a catch, And when the Sun arose we donned our boots And met a guide who taught us how to cast.

The mantel-clock sits, silent like a dumb Napoleonic hat upon the ledge— The winding key long gone; the brass gears stilled To rest; its plain once shining face, now glum With dust; its hands forever point in pledge To English tea at four o’clock.

Apocalypse is late at every turn.

in honor of David Solomon Horace, I must confess, you’ve managed to surprise Me.

At the close of the latest Supreme Court term, which saw major decisions on birthright citizenship, executive power, the Second Amendment, and absentee voting, conservatives found themselves once again grateful not only for Clarence Thomas but also for the

In 1734, with France near its pinnacle of prestige and power, Montesquieu wrote his Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decline of Rome.

After Europe’s longest-serving premier, Viktor Orbán, lost in a mid-April landslide the very week J.D.

On December 1, 1914, Alfred Thayer Mahan died at the age of seventy-four.

To have a clear idea of what is happening to us today with respect to the past and the future, we need only compare our situation with that experienced in the last third of the nineteenth century by Western man—that fin de siècle gentleman in his tailcoat,

Philadelphia’s political history has not been marked with many unique or fascinating characters.

Frank S.

By common assent modern conservatism, as political philosophy, springs from Edmund Burke: chiefly from his Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790.

Twenty twenty-six may be the year of “home.”

In the years following the Second World War, a group of writers emerged who became known as America’s “New Conservatives,” prominently including Richard M.

Over the last few years much of my intellectual development has been motivated by the desire to combat the influence of Marxism.

When attending my first student club fair at Northwestern University during the fall of 2022, I had a single objective in mind: own the libs.

If ever there were a cottage industry among today’s literati, it is writing about the demise of higher education.

Regular readers of Modern Age may be familiar with Noah Millman’s writing on film from his quarterly essays in this space.

Virginian political leader and orator John Randolph of Roanoke entered public life as a radical and ended his career as a conservative.

It is impossible for me to write of Dick Weaver in an impersonal and objective manner.