The Return of the Reactionary (Part 3)
Part 3: Whatever Happened to Nietzsche? This is the third part of our journey into the strange Other Wold of neo-reactionary political thought that began with an investigation into the phenomenon of the “alt right”. In the second instalment it lea into discussion of the monarcho-capitalist “NRx” movement. In…
The Return of the Reactionary (Part 2)
Part 2: Rebooting the Leviathan. In the first part of this essay we looked at the phenomenon of the “alt right”. In this second piece we turn to discussions of neo-reactionary philosophy. A common story goes that the intellectual flagship, the act of legitimation for reanimating reaction as a…
The Return of the Reactionary (Part I)
Part 1: Inside the Nazi CPU. This is the first of a three part essay on the current rise in hard right political thought. My aim is to work downwards from the tip of more conspicuous reactionary emergences like the “alt right” and the populism of Brexit and Trump…
Mad Men: The Death and Redemption of American Democracy
In the first season of AMC’s Mad Men, advertising executive Don Draper gives a presentation to some prospective clients from Kodak. The clients are looking for a way to market a new rotary slide projector. Don upsets and exceeds their expectations when, instead of focusing on the “exciting technology”…
Review of Mad Men: The Death and Redemption of American Democracy
Mad Men: The Death and Redemption of American Democracy. Sara MacDonald and Andrew Moore. Lexington Books, 2016. It’s been a decade since Mad Men premiered on television, with its alluring and disturbing portrait of America in the 1960s. This prestige drama and its mysterious protagonist, Don Draper, captured…
Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes: Dead Body Politics
No one would dispute that Shakespeare was interested in political questions. Much of his theatrical output focuses on medieval monarchs and ancient Roman civil wars. Plays such as The Merchant of Venice and Measure for Measure explicitly wrestle with political and legal dilemmas. Even Shakespeare’s more romantic and comical…
Review of Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes: Dead Body Politics
Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes: Dead Body Politics. Andrew Moore, Lexington Press, 2016. Andrew Moore’s book, Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes: Dead Body Politics, is bold and enlightening. Moore follows in the footsteps of Harry Jaffa, Allan Bloom, Thomas West, Paul Cantor, and Leon Craig, among others, in…
Shakespeare: The Philosopher's King
The Philosopher’s English King: Shakespeare’s Henriad as Political Philosophy. Leon Harold Craig. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2015. Anyone interested in studying Shakespeare as a philosopher-poet who addresses perennial questions about human existence through his plays will benefit from reading Leon Craig’s excellent book. Like his previous work,…
33rd International Meeting of THE ERIC VOEGELIN SOCIETY, San Francisco 2017
33rd International Meeting of THE ERIC VOEGELIN SOCIETY, 2017 American Political Science Association Meeting,August 31-September 3 San Francisco, CA David Walsh, Meeting Director [email protected] Dear Friends, This is our program as it currently stands at the beginning of August. Please continue to update me with any changes…
Liberty, Individuality, and Democracy in Jorge Luis Borges
According to Nobel Prize Winner, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge Luis Borges is “the most important thing that happened to Spanish literature in modern times, and one of the most memorable artists of our time.” I had not fully realized the unique stature that Borges reached abroad until fifteen years…
Review of Liberty, Individuality, and Democracy in Jorge Luis Borges
Liberty, Individuality, and Democracy in Jorge Luis Borges. Alejandra Salinas. Lanham MD, Lexington Books: 2017. This volume explores the writings of Jorge Luis Borges in respect to the appearance of “the political” in his work, arguing that Borges’ fiction discloses an admiration for individuality, liberal anarchism, and a…
Aldous Huxley: The Political Thought of a Man of Letters
Behind the renowned artistic and literary production of Aldous Huxley is a political thinking that proves decisive for a full analysis of the entire intellectual career of one of the most important figures of twentieth-century English literature. After his encounter with Vilfredo Pareto’s Trattato di Sociologia Generale, his early…
Review of Aldous Huxley: The Political Thought of a Man of Letters
Aldous Huxley: The Political Thought of a Man of Letters. Alessandro Maurini. Lexington Books, 2017. Few books bridge the divide between serious literature and popular entertainment as successfully as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Huxley’s dystopian vision of the dangers of materialism, social engineering, and omnipresent government regulation brings…
Sinclair Lewis and American Democracy
Sinclair Lewis had an ambivalent relationship with America. His Midwestern upbringing perfectly situated him to understand the American experiment, but he found it wanting in many ways. His take on the United States was captured during a 1930 radio interview he gave while in Berlin: “Intellectually I know that America is no…
Review of Sinclair Lewis and American Democracy
Sinclair Lewis and American Democracy. Steven Michels. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017. In his 1922 travelogue What I Saw in America, G.K. Chesterton comments briefly on the most popular book of the day, Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street. Chesterton finds it ironic that denizens of Main Streets all over America…
The Politics of Perfection
The Politics of Perfection: Technology and Creation in Literature and Film. Kimberly Hurd Hale. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. It is a nearly universally acknowledged fact that technology carries the potential for both great benefits and great dangers to human beings. Few question the assumption that science and…
Review of The Politics of Perfection: Technology and Creation in Literature and Film
The Politics of Perfection: Technology and Creation in Literature and Film. Kimberly Hurd Hale. Lexington Books, 2016. In The Politics of Perfection: Technology and Creation in Literature and Film, Kimberly Hurd Hale confronts one of the most serious political issues facing humanity in the 21st century. Technology, increasing…
This is the third part of our journey into the strange Other Wold of neo-reactionary political thought that began with an investigation into the phenomenon of the “alt right”. In the second instalment it lea into discussion of the monarcho-capitalist “NRx” movement. In this final piece we follow a rather different but not entirely…
In the first part of this essay we looked at the phenomenon of the “alt right”. In this second piece we turn to discussions of neo-reactionary philosophy. A common story goes that the intellectual flagship, the act of legitimation for reanimating reaction as a culture, began at the end of last decade with a rather peculiar…
This is the first of a three part essay on the current rise in hard right political thought. My aim is to work downwards from the tip of more conspicuous reactionary emergences like the “alt right” and the populism of Brexit and Trump to nascent real attempts to imagine “future primeval” visions. Twenty-first centuries…
It’s been a decade since Mad Men premiered on television, with its alluring and disturbing portrait of America in the 1960s. This prestige drama and its mysterious protagonist, Don Draper, captured viewers’ imaginations for seven seasons, portraying a pivotal era of modernity. Critics and…
Andrew Moore’s book, Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes: Dead Body Politics, is bold and enlightening. Moore follows in the footsteps of Harry Jaffa, Allan Bloom, Thomas West, Paul Cantor, and Leon Craig, among others, in that he takes Shakespeare seriously as a political philosopher. Unlike their approach, however,…
Anyone interested in studying Shakespeare as a philosopher-poet who addresses perennial questions about human existence through his plays will benefit from reading Leon Craig’s excellent book. Like his previous work, Philosophy and the Puzzles of Hamlet: A Study of Shakespeare’s Method, Craig’s latest…
33rd International Meeting of THE ERIC VOEGELIN SOCIETY, 2017
American Political Science Association Meeting,August 31-September 3
San Francisco, CA
David Walsh, Meeting Director
Dear Friends,
This is our program as it currently stands at the beginning of August. Please continue to update me with any changes that become necessary. I have filled in…
The Return of the Reactionary (Part 3) 
The Life of the Scholar 
The Use of Force 
“A Cow Is Just a Cow”: George Grant and Eric Voegelin on the United States 
The Collected Works: The Drama of Humanity (Volume 33) 
Eric Voegelin as Master Teacher 
New Political Religions, or An Analysis of Modern Terrorism 
What is a Miracle? 
What Enlightenment, Exactly? 
God is Not Just the Good, as Plato Claimed But Love 
Mad Men: The Death and Redemption of American Democracy 
Shakespeare between Machiavelli and Hobbes: Dead Body Politics 
Shakespeare: The Philosopher’s King 
33rd International Meeting of THE ERIC VOEGELIN SOCIETY, San Francisco 2017 
The Limits of Politics 
Liberty, Individuality, and Democracy in Jorge Luis Borges