Republican officers inspect Soviet armor in Spain
2,525 words
The uprising of General Francisco Franco against the Leftist Republican Spanish government began in July of 1936. The fratricidal bloodbath that was the Spanish Civil War ended on April 1, 1939, with the Republican surrender to Franco’s Nationalist forces. The history of that conflict deserves intense, careful scrutiny, and for a number of reasons. (more…)
Frederic Remington, The Herd Boy, ca. 1905.
763 words
In 18th-century Scotland, civilized people agreed that the tartan-wearing, livestock-thieving denizens of the Highlands were, at best, a nuisance. (more…)
Like most illustrations of this kind, Death seems to be having a grand ol’ time.
8,057 words
The half-light of an autumn evening reflected off the Old River and into the face of the boatman. Over and under each subtle ripple and eddy, his eyes darted here to there so quickly that his gaze seemed fixed. As if he took in the whole broad sweep of the Thames with a hungry look-out. Next to him, and charged with steering the dinghy, stooped a young girl, his daughter. She “watched his face as earnestly as he watched the river. But in the intensity of her look, there was a touch of . . . horror.” (more…)
1,992 words
Jack London
The People of the Abyss
New York: Macmillan, 1903
Some phrases stay with you for life, and one such for me has been attributed to Carl Jung, but seems rather to be a Latin motto favored by the European alchemists of the 15th century: Liber librum aperit, or, “one book opens another.” (more…)
3,018 words
The singer Édith Piaf famously, and throatily, regretted nothing about anything. But the poet John Betjeman wished that he’d had more sex. And the economist John Maynard Keynes that he’d drunk more champagne. Me? I regret two things much more important than recreational sex or champagne. (more…)
1,394 words
Christian Petzold’s Undine, set in contemporary Berlin, begins with Undine Wibeau (Paula Beer) having coffee with Johannes, her boyfriend. It’s not going well. She has deep, penetrating eyes and red hair that looks ready to blaze. She says to him: “You said you loved me. Forever. If you leave me, I’ll have to kill you. You know that.”
We’ve all had girlfriends like that, haven’t we? (more…)
1,342 words
D-Day is one of the most important anniversaries on the American calendar. Even though it was only the 77th anniversary this year, politicians and other dignitaries still felt it was needed to tweet about the day. It’s not the worst holiday in the world. It ultimately celebrates the heroism of white men in combat. (more…)
3,495 words
Tucker Carlson recently ruffled some feathers for calling WWI “the Iraq War of its day.” I’m not sure what these people were offended by. I think there are just people who get outraged by the things Tucker Carlson says first before coming up with a reason why (more…)
Charles Marion Russell, To the Victor Belongs the Spoils, 1901.
1,536 words
May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.
— Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly
I remember one time, in the halcyon days of 2016, being mocked by a conservative for “fetishizing losers.” (more…)
Muriel Gantry
7,874 words
Editor’s Note: The following text by Muriel Gantry (1913–2000) is a bit more than half of the “Curriculum Vitae of Muriel Gantry: All You Ever Wanted to Know and a Great Deal You Probably Didn’t,” which she prepared in 1995 for Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, who was writing a biography of her friend Savitri Devi. (more…)
Francesco Trevisani, Saint Peter Baptizing the Centurion Cornelius, 1709.
2,482 words
See James O’Meara’s review of The Jesus Hoax here and David Skrbina’s reply here.
First off, I want to relieve Prof. Skrbina of his concern over my “grudge” against him. I happened upon this book (and in a burst of synchronicity, was asked by our esteemed editor at Counter-Currents to review it), but was unfamiliar with Skrbina’s work to begin with. That, of course, means nothing, as I am not an academic myself. But a brief glance at his Amazon listing led me to take a positive interest in him, (more…)
2,628 words
Kevin M. Kruse & Julian E. Zelizer
Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974
New York: Norton & Company, Inc., 2019
Professors Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer have written a book in which they argue that the fault lines of America’s polarized political culture started to emerge around 1974. (more…)
3,334 words
Ron Chernow
Grant
New York: Penguin Press, 2017
Ulysses S. Grant is one of the archetypal Americans. A brilliant general who would only accept unconditional surrender. A modest president who eschewed pomp in favor of simple, democratic attire. (more…)
4,348 words
David Skrbina
The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul’s Cabal Fooled the World for Two Thousand Years
Creative Fire Press, 2019
This short book presents itself as the latest in a genre whose brightest lights are Nietzsche’s The Antichrist (which the author quotes extensively) and Savitri Devi’s pamphlet Paul of Tarsus, or Christianity and Jewry (reviewed here; Skrbina has produced an excellent new and revised edition of her related work, Son of the Sun). (more…)
N. C. Wyeth, The Burning of the Bounty, 1940.
1,466 words
For men on the Right, observable truths about the state of Western civilization intersect like the threads of an unraveling tapestry. We see order giving into chaos; tyranny and anarchy converging and becoming indiscernible in the stew of nature, oppression, freedom, injustice, security, peace, and conflict. (more…)
3,114 words
It took no time for the Lügenpresse to rile the aggrieved and indoctrinated up into a rampage after the death of George Floyd.
The relentless stream of increasingly hostile anti-European content spewing forth from the mainstream media (MSM) had already primed the thieves and vandals eager to smash stuff up and tear stuff down. All they needed was to hear the Pavlovian bell. (more…)
2,785 words
One of the great unexpected pleasures of the Covid lockdown last spring was discovering oddball television series you otherwise wouldn’t have approached with a barge pole. Producers and programming executives detected a nice angle here, so they moved up launch dates by a few months. This is what happened with Mrs. America, a nine-part FX series with Cate Blanchett that debuted on Hulu last April and May, instead of its originally scheduled launch in July and August. (more…)
1,899 words
Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 was first published 68 years ago, and the first film adaptation was produced in 1966, but its messages remain surprisingly relevant today. Although many interpreted it as merely a story about government censorship, Bradbury himself characterized the work as a statement on the dumbing-down effect of television. (more…)
1,789 words
Adam Curtis has been compiling and documenting the nature of power in the world for over two decades now for the BBC. Those of us who reside in the UK and are required by law to pay a yearly sum of £157.50 ($218.35) for a television license, and for many native British people, paying this sum has been increasingly feeling like a spit in the face. Adam Curtis’ documentaries have been the one reprieve from the stream of abuse and guilt-tripping amongst the state-sponsored news media and junk celebrity TV. (more…)
2,025 words
By the time the reader begins the second volume of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together, he’s aware of a complex yet fragile balance established by the author in volume one. Jews and Russians have shared the same empire and language for centuries, but not without conflict brought about by their different natures and the exigencies of history. (more…)
2,542 words
Anthony Burgess
1985
London: Hutchinson, 1978
Anthony Burgess of A Clockwork Orange fame celebrated thirty years of Nineteen Eighty-Four with his 1985. It is in two parts: a discussion of Orwell and freedom, and a novella updating Winston Smith’s struggle. (more…)
Detail, Arnold Böcklin, Odysseus boasting to Polyphemus, 1896.
1,772 words
Anyone with a decent education knows that the Iliad and Odyssey concern the fall of Troy and the struggle of Odysseus against a series of eldritch terrors on his voyage homeward. The timeless appeal is clear; the style is quite gripping, which especially comes out if one has a good translation or happens to know Greek. (more…)
Detail, George Vertue, King Edward I, 1734.
2,706 words
In many ways, America and Britain’s sociopolitical circumstances parallel those of the reigns of King John, King Henry III, and King Edward I, a period of 108 years. [1]
Jewish financial swindles and cultural corruption plagued England, as well as involvement in foreign quagmire wars in France, Sicily, and the Levant. Foreign advisors were also influencing the King. (more…)
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Wedding Dance, 1566.
5,603 words
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
— William Shakespeare, Sonnet III
Half of all millennials are single. They are the loneliest generation ever. (more…)
A North American beaver eating water lilies. Image credit: Ingrid Taylar.
1,020 words
Throughout the United States and Canada, we have an animal called the beaver whose behavior reflects the best of our nature. Like much of our population in recent years, the beaver is stout, and not very photogenic. He has tiny eyes and a huge nose, bright orange teeth, and when on land has a waddling gait like a penguin. (more…)
You can buy Stephen Paul Foster’s novel Toward the Bad I Kept on Turning here.
3,142 words
Stephen Paul Foster
Toward the Bad I Kept on Turning: A Confessional Novel
Independently published, 2020
“My cynicism I carefully dissembled.”
“The sapience of a post-modern philosopher attached to the commentary of a Chicago mayor, I think, would bring a perfect understanding of where late-20th-century America was headed.” (more…)
1,789 words
Tony Vermont, ed.
Folk: A Collection on What it Means to be a People
The White People’s Press: 2020
It’s one thing to be part of a folk — a society connected by blood, history, myth, language, and territory. It’s something more to possess items — functional or not — that strengthen these connections. (more…)
1,429 words
One of President Trump’s last acts in office offered his view of American history. Just a few days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, the Trump administration released both the 1776 Commission Report and the list of statues for the proposed National Garden of American Heroes. (more…)
3,395 words
Mike Duncan
The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic
New York: Public Affairs, 2017
If the United States is anywhere on the Roman timeline, it must be somewhere between the great wars of conquest and the rise of the Caesars. (more…)
2,812 words
Lynne Olson
Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight over World War II, 1939–1941
New York: Random House, 2013
The idea of America First policy is back after a long hiatus. The first proponent for such a policy was none other than George Washington. (more…)