What Are People For?
A review of What Are People For? by Wendell Berry (North Point Press, 1990) “We should love life,” Dostoyevski once said, “more than the idea of life.” It is this concreteness, this rootedness, that seemingly… »
Latest From The Review
Latest From The Blog
Anything Is Nice If It Come From Dixieland
In October 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the executive mansion. This was an unprecedented move. No African-American had ever been asked to dine with the president, and while neither… »
Anything Is Nice If It Come From Dixieland
In October 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the executive mansion. This was an unprecedented move. No African-American had ever been asked to dine with the president, and while neither… »
What Are People For?
A review of What Are People For? by Wendell Berry (North Point Press, 1990) “We should love life,” Dostoyevski once said, “more than the idea of life.” It is this concreteness, this rootedness, that seemingly… »
The Southern Muse of Ronnie Van Zant
The 1970’s were an interesting time in the South. The 1970’s were the last time Southerners could be Southern without feeling the need to apologize for, or be ironic about, their Southern identity. In fact,… »
Podcast Episode 133
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, August 6-10, 2018 Topics: the War, Political Correctness, Neoconservatives, Reconstruction, Southern Culture, Southern Literature.
The Southern Saga
In the book The Mystery of the Wonder-Worker of Ostrog, the main character, Mladjen, a fictional representation of the modern Serb uprooted from his traditions by the lingering effects of Communism (who is very much… »
Causes of the “Civil War”
In a PBS interview seven years ago historian and Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust identified slavery as the cause of the Civil War. “Historians are pretty united on the cause of the Civil War being slavery,”… »
Southward Returning/Sanctuary
Southward Returning To you, Virginia, Tennessee, To Georgia’s red roads, to the past That binds the delta and the sea, Your Southern sons return at last. No more the always going forth From ruin and… »
The Power of Memory: How to Remember America’s Most Traumatic Crisis
A review of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory by David Blight (Harvard University Press, 2001). In Race and Reunion, historian David Blight recounts the first fifty years after the Civil War in order… »
The Death of Historical Accuracy
In case you haven’t heard, there is a new “conservative” film out; it is titled “Death of a Nation: Can We Save America a Second Time?” It’s director and screenwriter is Dinesh D’Souza, the somewhat… »
Podcast Episode 132
The Week in Review at the Abbeville Institute, July 30 – Aug 3, 2018 Topics: the War, Abraham Lincoln, myth-making, Southern culture, Southern history.
Lead Belly’s Southern Roots
Sometime around 1939, Lead Belly sang the song Daddy I’m Coming Back to You, which features the interesting lyrics: “I’m dreaming tonight of an old Southern town, the best friend I ever had…I’ve had my… »
July 4 Comes and Goes, but Doesn’t Square with The Swamp
“Living in Washington, you can’t take politics too seriously. I draw the line at honesty. I have no time for political hacks who say things they don’t believe because they get paid to.” Tucker Carlson… »
