My long-ago personal connection to Jackson parallels the underlying theme of BradleyBirzer’s book. Birzer, a historian at Hillsdale College, and a scholar-at-large at TAC, posits that Jackson was, in some ways, “the first truly American president.” His experiences and attitudes were deeply rooted in our young nation’s soil, his military leadership during our “Second War of Independence” echoed that of General Washington, and he became an exemplar of democracy.
— Read on www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/andrew-jackson-our-first-populist-president/

I’m very grateful to Jeff Taylor of the very fine Dordt College for his painstaking review of IN DEFENSE OF ANDREW JACKSON.

Christopher Dawson (1889-1970), one of the greatest of the unsung heroes of Christianity in the twentieth century, worried incessantly and critically about the rise of “progressive” thought in world history. As Dawson noted, time and time again, no one in the ancient or medieval Western worlds (or elsewhere, for that matter) considered history to be progressive. Instead, most who thought about history at all—East and West—thought of it as cyclical: A thing began, it aged, it died, and the cycle began all over again. A person came into the world, survived into middle age, became bodily corrupt, and died. Yet, humanity as a whole continued, even when the individual did not. The same was true of the seasons. Spring, then summer, then autumn, then winter. And, yet, out of this cycle, no fifth thing arose. Instead, the cycle began again, and spring followed winter. Always, and without exception. Cycles became critical elements to all first ethical, moral, and philosophical understandings of the world, whether in Miletus, India, or China.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/christopher-dawson-time-bradley-j-birzer.html

This composer also lacks partisans who fondly recall his music in association with the pleasant memories of childhood, as many adults do in the case of, say, a Brahms or Mozart. This is because he wrote no piano or violin sonatas that a young student might learn. (He himself destroyed a few of his early chamber works and wrote none in his maturity.) In fact, probably uniquely among the great composers, he never learned to play the piano, as he was not groomed by his parents for a musical career.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/learning-to-love-hector-berlioz-150-timeless-stephen-klugewicz.html