Rallying the Really Human Things [antikvár]

Preface allying the Really Human Things" is a phrase of G. K. M^Jr Chesterton's. And not by accident, I called the column in m^^^ which previous versions of about half the chapters gath-I ^^^ ered here first appeared "Really Human Things." From the beginning I thought that I might compose enough essays to make up a book with Chesterton's phrase for the title. Invitations to speak at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal reinforced this idea and gave me the opportunity to think and write more on the notion that there are certain things that are properly, "really" human. This book, the culmination of that activity, admittedly has neither the unity nor the coherence of a conventional monograph. Rather, it includes essays on a variety of topics. There is a guiding vision, however, one best conveyed by the interrelated themes of Christian humanism and the moral imagination, themes explored in depth in the first five chapters. My choice of the trio of G. K. Chesterton (1874—1936), Flannery O'Connor (1925-64), and Russell Kirk (1918-94) as representative Christian human-