Bradley Joseph Birzer

"At the heart of Tolkienian fantasy is "recovery," a "cleaning of the windows" of our perception that we may learn to see the world again in all its strange and bewildering beauty. This book is the first sustained attempt to show not only the centrality of recovery to Tolkien's fantasy but the way in which his fantasy affects that primal recovery in every reader. In doing so, this book not only reveals the marvelous philosophical and theological riches that underlie Tolkien's fantasy but shows how his mythopoetic fiction allows the recovery and enactment of these riches in our own lives. In these pages we learn how Tolkien's fantasy addresses fundamental problems such as the relation of language to reality, the nature of evil, the distinction between time and eternity and its relation to death and immortality, the paradox of necessity and free will in human action and the grounds for providential hope in a "happy ending.""--

With a new introduction by the authorPeter Jackson's film version of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy - and the accompanying Rings-related paraphernalia and publicity - has played a unique role in the disemmination of Tolkien's imaginative creation to the masses. Yet, for most readers and viewers, the underlying meaning of Middle-earth has remained obscure. Bradley Birzer has remedied that with this fresh study. In J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-earth, Birzer reveals the surprisingly specific religious symbolism that permeates Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He also explores the social and political views that motivated the Oxford don, ultimately situating Tolkien within the Christian humanist tradition represented by Thomas More and T.S. Eliot, Dante and C.S. Lewis. Birzer argues that through the genre of myth Tolkien created a world that is essentially truer than the one we think we see around us everyday, a world that transcends the colorless disenchantment of our postmodern age.

Aristocrat. Catholic. Patriot. Founder. Before his death in 1832, Charles Carroll of Carrolltonthe last living signer of the Declaration of Independencewas widely regarded as one of the most important Founders. Today, Carrolls signal contributions to the American Founding are overlooked, but the fascinating new biography American Cicero rescues Carroll from unjust neglect. Drawing on his considerable study of Carrolls published and unpublished writings, historian Bradley J. Birzer masterfully captures a man of supreme intellect, imagination, integrity, and accomplishment. Born a bastard, Carroll nonetheless became the best educated (and wealthiest) Founder. The Marylanders insight, Birzer shows, allowed him to recognize the necessity of independence from Great Britain well before most other Founders. Indeed, Carrolls analysis of the situation in the colonies in the run-up to the Revolution was original and brilliantyet almost all historians have ignored it. Reflecting his classical and liberal education, the man who would be called The Last of the Romans advocated a proper understanding of the American Revolution as deeply rooted in the Western tradition. Carroll even left his mark on the U.S. Constitution despite not assuming his elected position to the Constitutional Convention: by inspiring the creation of the U.S. Senate. American Cicero ably demonstrates how Carrolls Catholicism was integral to his thought. Oppressed because of his faithMaryland was the most anti-Catholic of the original thirteen coloniesCarroll became the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence and helped legitimize Catholicism in the young American republic. Whats more, Birzer brilliantly reassesses the most controversial aspects of Charles Carroll: his aristocratic position and his critiques of democracy. As Birzer shows, Carrolls fears of extreme democracy had ancient and noble roots, and his arguments about the dangers of democracy influenced Alexis de Tocquevilles magisterial work Democracy in America. American Cicero reveals why Founders such as John Adams assumed that Charles Carroll would one day be considered among the greatsand also why history has largely forgotten him.

Though Neil Peart is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest living drummers, few studies have been devoted to his writings. Yet, Peart is very much a man of his words. He writes lyrics, travelogues, short stories, essays, and books of cultural criticism. In terms of his cultural impact, he is also one of North America's greatest living men of letters. The themes he offers in his writings are timeless: philosophy, journeys, growth, exploration, excellence, art, satisfaction, happiness, religion, politics, individualism, expression, natural history, cultural criticism, life, love, loss, redemption, and beauty. Peart wants every person to persevere through individual trials, and find his or her unique gifts and abilities and, ultimately, true happiness. Most tellingly, Peart does not just profess such things, he has lived them and continues to live them. Never satisfied with second best or any form of defeat, Peart challenges himself time and time again to live up to his own philosophy. And he has succeeded through great personal adversity and, at times, irrational professional jealousy of and hatred toward him, and he has always succeeded through grace.