Grahame Baker-Smith’s 2017 Folio illustration for War of the Worlds.
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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
Introduction
It was perhaps the most famous description of a (space) alien in English literature. The narrator felt an “utter terror [grip] him” as a thing from a nightmare emerged slowly, slowly from the pit that its smoking spacecraft had cratered in the Earth. As its body “bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather.” A pair of huge, fathomless dark eyes regarded him intensely, “steadfastly. (more…)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
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I recently visited De Smet, South Dakota. It’s a small town east of central South Dakota named for a black-robed Christian missionary to the Indians. There are many such towns across the North American prairie; what makes this one special is that it is the town where Laura Ingalls Wilder launched her teaching career at the age of 16. Wilder went on to immortalize De Smet, South Dakota, and her family in a series of semi-fictionalized books. (more…)
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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
There is a wonderful Ridley Scott film from 1977 called The Duellists, based on a Joseph Conrad short story, “The Duel.” It follows the exploits of two hussars in Napoleon’s Grande Armée as they traveled from 1800 Strasbourg, to 1812 Russia, and back again to France after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo. Were their enemies the Prussians, or the Russians, or the British? No, their true enemies were one another — (more…)
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Barbara F. Walter
How Civil Wars Start: and How to Stop Them
New York: Random House, 2022
Barbara F. Walter is a Professor of Political Science at the School of Global Policy and Strategy as well as an Adjunct Professor at UC San Diego. She is also an expert in civil wars and how they start. In her recently-published book, How Civil Wars Start, she makes the case that the United States is headed towards civil war. (more…)
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About a week ago a young black employee brought back news from the ghetto (colored folks are now the only reliable and honest sources left when it comes to these sorts of adventures). Earlier that afternoon, “authorities” had placed her high school on lock-down. A student had marched through the front doors with a gun and then began shooting up the place. Only notoriously bad black marksmanship prevented the school from becoming an abattoir. He then turned and fled, hiding somewhere inside the building (supposedly). (more…)
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Some eminent notables have claimed that the American Civil War had substantial roots in literature. Mark Twain, for example, said of Sir Walter Scott that he was “in great measure responsible for the war.” That proposition is debatable, of course. This argument hinges on how much the widespread influence of his romanticized chivalric prose bolstered the South’s hyper-thumotic stance — in plainer words, piss and vinegar — which contributed to secession, and shortly thereafter a war that went horribly awry. (more…)
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The year was 939 AD, the setting near the city of Simancas. Count Fernán Gonzalez, a commander of free Spain, rode at the head of an army whose mission was to strike a blow against the Saracen invaders of Al-Andalus. Still, they were outnumbered and desperate. Fortune, it seemed, would favor the Moors on this day. But as the Count’s troops prepared to clash with their foe, a miracle occurred. (more…)
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It was a sweltering July afternoon at the Malvern Hill battle site — more than 150 years gone since it had been the scene of General Robert E. Lee’s debut in the 1862 Seven Days campaign. It was the conclusion of his defense of Richmond from the numerically-superior Army of the Potomac, led by George McClellan. (more…)
1,900 words
How the West Was Won (1962)
Starring: James Stewart, John Wayne, Gregory Peck, and others
Directed by: John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall
Written by: James R. Webb & John Gay (uncredited)
Want to watch a wholesome pro-white move? A movie that is a classic of artistic excellence? I offer up the 1962 epic, How the West Was Won.
It must be stated upfront that the movie is a masterpiece with a flaw. How the West Was Won was filmed and presented using the Cinerama process. (more…)
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You’re not supposed to call Robert E. Lee a great general anymore.
President Donald Trump he called Lee a “great general” last week, igniting another controversy in the process. He praised Lee while trying to defend his famous Charlottesville response.
“Trump’s ‘Great General’ Robert E. Lee was a traitor and a bad person,” read the headline of a Daily Beast article on those remarks. (more…)
4,486 words
Thomas Goodrich
The Day Dixie Died: Southern Occupation, 1865-1866
Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001
Thomas Goodrich’s second book for Stackpole Books followed three years after his revisionist look at the culture of the American Indians in Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879. (more…)
