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The Song of Roland Book Review

Translation by W. S. Merwin, Notes, Glossary, and Select Bibliography by M. A. Clermont-Ferrand The Modern Library, 2001 137 pages ISBN 978-0375757112 The Song of Roland is a classic of Western literature, part of the mythology surrounding Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. Probably composed in this form sometime in

The Long View: The Rosicrucian Enlightenment

The Rosicrucian Order is the kind of thing I couldn't get enough of when I was a teenager and a young man, and now bores me to tears. Accordingly, I'm sympathetic to John's critical reading of what the history of such movements really means.

The Long View: The Forge of Christendom

Cricketer, historian, and author Tom Holland is here a proponent of the thesis that one of the things that truly differentiates the Christian West, Christendom, is the separation of powers between church and state that gradually evolved out of a fight over who was allowed to nominate bishops. However, Holland

The Long View: A History of the Crusades

Sir Steven Runciman's three volume history has seen quite a bit of criticism in the last twenty-five years. However, it tells a hell of a good story, and you can learn something even if you disagree with Runciman's take. A History of the Crusades By Sir

The Long View: Marcus Aurelius: A Life

Another Roman history lesson, courtesy of Frank McLynn's biography of Marcus Aurelius. I have been slowly re-reading [for probably the twentieth time] G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, and I also find Chesterton's description of Classical Rome strikingly allusive. For Eastern Christians, the Roman

The Long View: The Menace of Multiculturalism in America

Seeing this book had a foreword by Dinesh D'Souza, who has descended into hackery in the twenty years since this review was written, made me think of the fantastic Twitter exchange above. The book John reviews here isn't very good, but his discussion of the issues

Spengler's Future Updated

I added in a hyperlinked table of contents to Spengler's Future, John's programmatic [literally, he used BASIC] comparison of Rome, Egypt, the Ottoman Turks, and that offshoot of northwest Europe current known as the West. This is all rather fun, as long as you take it