Tag: Arnold Toynbee

Two of Obama’s mentors, whose imaginations helped to meme his presidency into existence: anti-white Pastor Jeremiah Wright with Bill Ayers, former terrorist leader of the Weather Underground.

4,834 words

“Anything is possible in this world. I really believe that. Dream on it. Let your mind take you to places you would like to go, and then think about it and plan it and celebrate the possibilities. And don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t know how to dream.”–Liza Minnelli

“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”–Antonio Gramsci (more…)

Whittaker Chambers, underground man.

2,070 words

(Written in the style, if not quite the spirit, of senior TIMEditor Chambers’ weekly newsmagazine.)

Rumpled, paunchy Whittaker Chambers (April 1, 1901-July 9, 1961) has long merited haughty sneers and raised eyebrows on America’s nationalist Right. Reasons: his shifting ideologies, his inscrutable motives.

Among the most compelling critiques of Chambers we may count those of Classics professor Revilo P. Oliver. (more…)

The rarely-photographed Harald Keith Thompson, Jr. in 1954

10,255 words

Editor’s Note:

The following interview with H. Keith Thompson is based upon a typewritten transcription of the the original taped interview. Unless otherwise noted, additions in square brackets are in the typescript as well. There are also a number of hand-written corrections and additions on the typescript. Since the typescript was seen by Thompson, I am assuming that either he made these corrections himself or at least approved of them, so I have incorporated them where legible. For more on Thompson’s life and work, see Kerry Bolton’s excellent essay “H. Keith Thompson, Jr.“

(more…)

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, “A Favorite Poet”

2,428 words

Delivered to the H. L. Mencken Club, November 1, 2013

About two years ago, when I was still very young, I bumped into a copy of the abridged version of Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History, wherein he tried to establish a taxonomy of civilizations, (more…)