. .the South—alone among the civilized communities of the nineteenth century—had hardihood sufficient for an appeal to arms against the iron new order which, a vague instinct whispered to Southerners, was inimical to the sort of humanity they knew.” —Russell Kirk, The Conservative MindCertainly those south of the Mason-Dixon line expect little by way of understanding from non-natives, especially from someone born and raised just outside of Detroit, that most Northern of cities. But God loves irony, and He chose to place there one of the South’s strongest defenders. Indeed, perhaps no Northerner has been more sympathetic to the Southern cause this century than has the late Russell Kirk.
Author of nearly 30 books and hundreds of articles before his untimely death in May, Kirk more than anyone else provided the philosophical underpinnings of the postwar conservative renascence. An original contributor to National Review, Kirk also founded Modern Age and edited The University Bookman for over 30 years. Whittaker Chambers labeled his The Conservative Mind, released in 1953, the most important book of the twentieth century, and throughout Kirk’s writings ran a thread of Southern sympathy and sensibility that did much to shore up Southern conservatism over the past four decades.
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