From the Academy

FROM THE ACADEMY George Santayana tells us that those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it. We stand in that peril today. In school and college, historical studies give ground dismayingly before the abstractions and slogans of sociology. In the big book-reviewing media, some really important new historical publications are ignored altogether.

Just now we behold a revolt against what is called the liberal Establishment, by conservatives on one hand and radicals on the other. Something very similar occurred a century and a quarter ago; and much may be learned from a study of the nineteenth-century opposition to a dull utilitarian domination.

RK

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Russell Kirk

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FROM THE ACADEMY George Santayana tells us that those who ignore the past are condemned to repeat it. We stand in that peril today. In school and college, historical studies give ground dismayingly before the abstractions and slogans of sociology. In the big book-reviewing media, some really important new historical publications are ignored altogether.

Just now we behold a revolt against what is called the liberal Establishment, by conservatives on one hand and radicals on the other. Something very similar occurred a century and a quarter ago; and much may be learned from a study of the nineteenth-century opposition to a dull utilitarian domination.