>> we want to make a better future. so let's do that together. . .

ladies and gentlemen if i can get your attention please. thank you. i know some of you still have your dessert and coffee and i encourage you to go ahead and continue eating for if you can stop the extra conversations will get the program back on schedule. one of my things that i most humbled by is the wonderful team that we had been able to assemble over the five and half years that i had been

president and i mentioned nick read earlier. many of the teams. could all of the teams please stand up. they do a tremendous a job day in and day out getting the word out to young conservatives on college campuses and really having a big impact on all of the young people they are able to interact with. another member of the management team as ted donahue. he came after very impressive publishing career. whenever i run into the mini authors that he has worked closely with for majority well to michael they say are you

chris long and they say please tell him thank you. he is is the greatest editor i have ever worked with. [applause]. and i just heard at the same thing from her most recent author the president of the recent book out. it's getting a lot of attention on talk radio and other places and larry is very pleased with real heroes. i encourage you to get a copy or several copies. it has about 40 examples of a real heroes who have shown courage and integrity in the lives. if your children or grandchildren it's a wonderful book so please take a look at real heroes. i'm also excited that we have

to publish lee edwards memoir. and were very excited to head him here. and to have jed working to publish this book. i look forward to that coming out in the coming months. and also weave a number of isi authors in the room who were here for the philadelphia society. will skip a give a round of applause to all of them. i think we published about 200 books over the last 63 years is a great way to the room is them is just with authors. i'm also extremely excited because among all of the things that jed does in addition to isi books and all

the other publications he is really the guiding force behind modern age. and we just went through a process to find the new editor of modern age we came down to five incredibly amazing finalist. any of him would certainly had been at least as good as the wonderful editors we we've have over the last 60 years i'm excited to tell you that we selected peter lawler who many of you know and peter is extremely excited. also excited to work with the other finalists. we hope to raise a significant amount of money in the coming months to really launch modern age and make sure that a returns to his ambition of being the preeminent journal of american conservatism. we hope to do a lot more marketing and increase the

circulation and continue to increase the significance and importance of all of the articles and essays that are included. jeff will be leading the charge on that as well. see mac jed also is the guy they have the vision verbally expanding and broadening and making more impactful cooler having a dinner like this so we are all able to enjoy to listen to the award winner and so without further do i like to bring jed donahue up. [applause]. >> think you chris and thank you all for being here. my name is jed donahue. i just want to say quickly i

think i think i speak when i say we are gratefully for the leadership that he is been bringing. congrats to both chris into charlie on their positions. [applause]. we are here tonight to present brad bursar with the book award. before i recognize brett i just want to say thank you as well to our judges we have a panel of judges who chose brad's book from among five excellent finalists. each of those are here with us at the cb and they just want to recognize them. [applause].

thank you for the care and effort that you and your fellow judges devote to this task every year. were very grateful. what was it about the book that stood out to the judges. i suspect first of all they recognize it was a masterful biography. if you look at him any of many of the mini reviews on the strength of this book i think suggested that brad shares some important things a common with the name sakes who you can read about in their programs. brad is a professor he teaches history at healthcare college. but like the paolucci's he is a he is the author of several acclaimed books. this is the all over to national review. they also cofounded the wonderful website.

with this biography he has done us the greatest service of providing insight into one of conservatism's most influential thinkers. he rates of the timeless lessons we can drop draw from the life and writing. the questions of the great hour. they have offered some special things today. at the beginning the book he writes in the early 1950s when kirk emerged on the scene conservatism was seen as black, blue, beaten and

adrift. the history made that. the american conservative. reviewing the book he read the following. get in the confused in the spirit of state. it is high time for russell kirk revival. they are researched. it just might provide the catalyst needed to set in motion. i think it's the conspiracy made a fine choice indeed. [applause].

think you all very much. this is an incredible honor and when i kept getting the e-mails saying sign up for this dinner i said zero no, no one's coming. i was starting to get really worried about that and i didn't know what was can happen. so this is really nice. my wife and i actually got up at 6:00 this morning and drove from michigan. we left at 6:40 and we got here about 4:38. i can tell you i actually met my wife 19 years ago this week. on she talked to me today in the car for a half hours straight i have no idea that she could do that even after knowing her for 19 years it

was the stamina was astounding. i'm not sure i can tell you everything we talked about that she talked about but it was great. thank you so much i have actually been involved with isi now since 1989. that was the first time i encountered that. i did not realize that chris was the founder. of course i assumed at that point the world was conservative. i thought we all thought that way. i remember how great it was. this is my senior year of college and you all remember this is when the wall came down as well. that was the first year that i read the conservative mind. it was a very important year for me and i'm so glad that i had been affiliated.

i would like to think a number of people i'm afraid if i added everybody here and explained my i have this very convoluted thing about how not only was it verging on that heretical the heretical but it was getting way too long. i will just do a speed reading here. i would like to think very much for a net kirk. it's a pretty serious honor in every way. and of course there was nothing in this space bar is that i found that did not make me a better person as i was reading through this. and getting to know him in ways on just what have been printed by the publishers. thank you for that. i wanted to think some other people as well. i would like to think jerry reseller.

he is extremely initiative as i was walking up. he started trying to intimidate me and tell me that i was neck and a do a good job it was a side of him i knew. dave whelan i would like to think my boss back there. thank you very much. what i would like to do an american to keep this too long. i would like to talk just about three things that i think were important about russell kirk. as jed had quoted from the beginning of the book. it was obvious that in 1953 conservatism was in a very bad way if it existed at all. it probably only existed as

the legacy of a few people. we note that not only was he tried to claim that mantle. there were a few other people's others. but they really didn't have a voice. and if you wanted to work --dash look for it you would find it strangely in the science fist should work. i remember looking at how they approach the subject. i think it's essential to understand his form of conservatism and what he was trying to do and i have the opportunity to talk about this three years ago. but when you look at the conservative mind it's essential to understand it is

meant to look in the series of different persons and understand that as persons they will have different ideas. and we don't look to another human person for protection. in one things he did so incredibly well in 1953 was simply to make the point let's not divide and sub divide. let's not narrow this thing. and of course we can all tear down the bad that so easy. in my he could put him. is simply because he recognized that they both had abilities and they both head excellences. by the fact that they were excellences they could it be equal and excellence can never be equal. so he saw that and he saw in those persons in the

conservative mind he saw elements of dignity in each one of them. i think it is a beautiful act in many ways a poetry probably more than political philosophy by looking at the conservative mind but he did so much to understand that nuance nature. i just want to give you a quote. and he wrote this. he could get into feisty moods. our image of him is a very stoic personality. he was full of energy. he was intelligent. he was also humble about this. he have ideas. hit was very strong about them. i love going back to look to the ideas he ran circles around his advisors. there's no way they could keep up with him as he was defending it.

it also were written that book very quickly. that was his first published book. he had written in the spring of 1941. many of you will have to trust me about this. i have to decipher his writing. but if you look at his letters which there were so many and was overwhelming. but maybe one out of every thousand have a typo. i was standing to look at this. this is how he wrote. you get something from him it's ready. there's nothing to really fix. but one of the things of the that he wrote at the beginning of his masses thesis he said why am i writing about john randolph. people knows about it but but no one really knows.

why would we do this. for me as an act of piety to call him up. in every way that is beautiful if you think about what this is there was great mythological understanding and i people were rather confused. >> what are you trying to say here. that's what he did. he made people better than what they actually were and there's nothing wrong with that. it was a gorgeous thing. it's something we can all learn over and over again how easy to tear someone down but what about finding that expert thing within them. the thing that makes them great. let me just give three points that i think are is essential. when we look at his conservatism and he struggled with this what term do we call it what was the title of the conservative mind. and we often forget he was a major celebrity between about

1953 and 1964. he was a household name. the carefully followed what he was doing. i was a pretty amazing figure and yet he have no idea. when he's writing this it was just as he did with his masters ds it was in active piety. so the right thing. he did it. and he did over and over again against incredible odds. what i would like two-point out first of all important for all of us especially as we look at kind of growing populism within the conservative movement today when the most important things to remember is that the human person has dignity. it's a simple thing. but not that many people were talking about that in 1983. he sounded a bit very young yusuf peeper at that point. hit really sound like what we

might think of dwight eisenhower. it's not quite the language he was using. and yet that is a language that gave birth to the movement no matter how shattered it might have become afterwards the language is the humanistic language of dizzy dignity. i would also give us a second point something i think we too often forget especially those of us tend to be on the more conservative side of the spectrum. we forget that all of conservatism arose as a screen is a cry against the mess conformity of the 1950s. we forget that. because we talk about things like norms and traditions and we honors our fathers because they honored them. and all that is to the good but it's only to the good when we understand through prudential judgment and that what we have inherited is a dignified thing. if something is given to us by our fathers simply as is he

said we have the duty to judge it. is it good. is it good and can be reformed. this is what every generation has acts. in other right wing figures. we have to fight against this conformity. we cannot allow america to become one mast tapioca. we have to fight against that. we do it through true individualism. a real personalism. understanding the human person. in recognizing that each person does bring something different. but we forget about that and we allow the left way too often to create art and originality. they have no art or originality. we had been the ones. we have the important ones.

we have russell kirk. we are the thinkers we are the ones who hate conformity. and we have to remember that. with the growing populism that we see in the movement and the divisions that we have we can just rally behind one school against every other school. kirk said we have to think about who we are broadly. we are to be willing to defend one another even when we disagree at times. there is a necessity in finding that common humanity because if we don't find it it's lost. it's gone. the third thing i would note that i think this is really the f essence of kirk. as i think about my own life and my own professional career in the kinds of things that edmund burke would've just set

of the unmarked grace of life. i think he's absolutely right about it. i've been blessed to be able to look a couple of figures very deeply partly because when he said after i got done with my dissertation which i was bored with what you want to do that i called jeff nelson and he said yeah let's run with it. i would not be here without it. i've been getting him since i was 11. i loved reading him. i loved figuring out who he was. and then i look at christopher dawson and he was mind boggling. mind-boggling. there was a time when i was in the library and i have to leave. i was starting to hyperventilate. to some the ideas coming off of that. and i got the chance to write about this is character i

couldn't quite grasp. but i've been reading him since 1989 and look at the papers. has dr. kirk would say it felt like it was a soul talking to a soul. you realize when you're writing that that you're holding their most intimate thoughts in your hand and it was my exemplar. did he make mistakes of course that's one of the things we love about him. they dealt with people at that level of dignity. he was in many ways a great stoic. color didn't matter, race didn't matter. he look at a person and does it matter if they don't look like you.

they have the image of the creator in them let's find out what that is it's beautiful. it's very important for all of us. one of the things we like one of the most important things you can do to be a good libertarian is to make sure you don't judge too much about the future. one of the greatest things about freedom we don't know what tomorrow will bring we actually like uncertainty in some kind of weird way and that's important. it wasn't just adam smith we see in the 20th century. it is order, liberty and justice. but all of those things had to go together. there's no justice without the right to believe. i think kirk understood that. is not liberty, as the order is not just justice but all of these things had to come together salami and with one thing. a few years ago i was part of this project we were able to republish this great book.

the third book. we could get into that that's a whole another topic. other topic. a book he wrote. he originally called mockingly. in fact, we actually like a little bit of chaos and disorder at least at some intellectual leather. --dash level. why was he calling this program for conservatives. i will read to you and i told you about her talking. so here is what she said. at the very end of the book he sent the grand question before us is really this is life

worth living. our men and women to live as persons formed in gods image with the minds and hearts in individuality or are they to become creatures less than human herded by the masters of the total state the botched by the indulgence of every appetite deprived of the consolations of religion and every learning in the sense of continuity drenched in propaganda with this flood of a triviality which is a planting private reason. it could've been said by many others. this is russell kirk in 1954. and i would guess is all of us listen to those words in this room we thought this could be 2016. it is not preserving everything that is old it is through judgment discerning

what is good, what is true and beautiful what can be reformed and what cannot. and this is what he reminded us of. he was the original not original yet he was utterly originally. what he believed it was timeless of his principles of conservatism we believe that every individual is individual we believe that every person is unique and we understand that excellence. as he put it this is the principal. every new person only grace perfects nature. russell kirk would say amen. this is who we are. we have all of these rules we have all of this order in the end we must decide are these

good, our they truly are they beautiful and if not we have to high duty of making them so. thank you. [applause]. >> thank you. [applause]. that was just magnificent. and all of you can now see why he is such a popular professor and why he is so popular among isi students and all of the audiences that he gets in front of. he also is in addition this is

incredible. it allows us some minutes for questions. we are very happy to have c-span here. we need to have you speak into the microphone to make sure that the questions are captured for c-span. who would like to be the first person to ask a question? don't be shy. we've the question right over here. what would russell kirk say about our current situation. >> my wife told me that would be the first question.

it is interesting to go back and look at his voting record. it's pretty clear where i could find in his papers. he liked norman thomas i think that be shocking to a lot of us. he certainly loved barry goldwater. it's another interesting relationship. in and he liked other people that we want to necessarily it was definitely very personal. at least watching it. it wasn't quite his character. i think he would be pretty shocked. if you would think this is naturally where we would be with the kind of sound bites and yelling the graphics everywhere. i think he would appreciate.

for me, this is something we've been doing as much as possible. having long discussion. i think they would approve of it. these are timeless questions. in some anyways. i think he would still be calling us back. there's certain tv personalities that do that. this is good stuff. on seven hour conversation about it.

no matter what the politics there was a dignity in the way that they treated one another. i think that would be very important for dr. kirk. not necessarily with the candidates but with the way they are behaving. i think you'd be pretty shocked. brad, thank you. you said that you started breeding him in 1989 and i was just wondering as you are going through his papers apart from the absence of typos. what was the biggest surprise that you encountered. they got married in 1964.

and it was 1960 when you met. even though russell had many very innocent relationships he did have a lot of relationships. i wasn't expecting that. a lot of very interesting discussions about dates going to movies and such. he was a huge fan. very interesting. and some dates were walking around liberal arts campus and he was try to see what did henschel grow for and what did he she think about the liberal arts. it was wonderfully nerdy. and very innocent. and when i would tell a net. annette. i said there's this person and this person. and her response was i one. i hope that was okay. i'm sorry. but seriously that was all

serious by the way. his letters are incredible from the very beginning. but there was a moment and i did get a chance to talk about this a little bit in the book there was a moment where you could see he became a man. he always have intellect. it was there from the first essay. he had been involved in debate and other things. it was certainly very important to him. but there was a letter he wrote in 1942 when he have just arrived he had been there about a month out in utah after he had been drafted. and he was out at the the testing facility there. he was an avid hiker and left going out into the desert on his own. and challenging himself how far can i go work at a go. there was one moment where he got a little lost. he actually talks about this and reflections of the gothic mind. it was a moment you can see in

the letter. his attitude changes he's not who we would call orthodox christian up until about 1963. you can see already when he was mostly an atheist back in 1942 something happened on the hike. his writing salad changes. it's pretty ascending to see the depth on it. you just see it close to a much more poetic level. it never really goes back it just grows from there. nothing i think. this is his best book. it's not that they are not all good and worthwhile but they were in prospects and program where his writing became something and that was truly original and yet very much within the context of american letters. beautifully so. >> brad, congratulations on

winning this prize. russell kirk wrote a short book called american cause. he thought it was very important book because it set out what we as americans should all believe and understand about what makes us exceptional. did you learn some about that in your book and can you comment on the short book of his. >> they had written the most in the best on that book in particular. but it was written for the armed services originally. they were making deals with the armed services and seen what they could do in order to get american principles out especially after the korean war and the fact that some new pows have taken communism and accepted it so much when they were challenged they have no real answer.

he does say exceptional but not necessarily in the way we use that now. he talked about the american mission and it would be no different than the mission anyone of us have. whatever were good at we are supposed to use that for the common good. he thought america in the community of nations that we have a certain duty to uphold certain things and eight east always wanted to be careful about this. to actually think he was against natural rights but he was not at all against that. in that book he stresses so clearly what and natural right is and what it is him. his object and was sent to natural rights it was to the idea that we as human could know exactly what it was and what it was not.

he was fearful of declarations of these rights or those rights. it's a pretty federalist argument in a way you're looking at this. it's a great book simply because kirk is laying out in ways he never did or in other books is political news. where the best things we could speak to on this. is his book on what is a republican. at that. his definition of what a republic is he's a little bit more economic than i think we would see in the later kirk. he is much more concerned of the role of free enterprise. one last question.

sure, absolutely. thank you so much for your beautiful tribute to dr. kirk. i've always said that his book on russell kirk was the output the question all of us you were steeped in the literature, and the archives and you alluded early in your marks to how it changed you. could you please share with us particularly poignant's personal story of how it has changed your life to work in the kirk archives. there are a lot of things. i think was really his charity that really hit me so hard. that's comparing others. he was so harassed at times that it was time and hard for him. charles carroll was

charitable. i think that certainly christopher dawson and the way he suffered from severe depression. i think it was within the limits of his personality. i think part of it was the fact that he always lived life exactly like what he thought his should be lived. it's one thing we have to admire whether we agree with him or not he did live as he preached. that's there it's in his letters. i know you and i have talked about this personally. his letters prior to this. before they met i can stress as he was getting mine and then money was coming in from fiction. much better than politics actually. it was coming in for his fiction. we have hungarian immigrants who were writing him. i won't necessarily mention names. i have nothing i came over here because i read this and that.

and kirk would put a lot of money in an envelope and send it off and i would guess he probably from what i know he doesn't look like he was the best money manager in the world. and that was incredible. and partly i tell the story or try to at the end of the books and i start with a lot of his charity it's good to look absurd and everyone's gonna shut it off because it's too much because it's there. i never want -- i never once saw him ask for money back. it's a gift. not alone. i'm very blessed. we are blessed to work with a great economist. one of my closest friends. he's here because dr. kirk and mrs. kirk got their family and of of former yugoslavia.

i know that the kirk daughters would wake up at time for breakfast and you would not know who was good to be eating breakfast with you. that's incredible. and if nothing else honestly i hope we remember his words. it was his example of how he lived. what he believed. it's incredible. so thank you. [applause]. >> thanks again. and brad has graciously agreed even though he has just head this tremendously long drive to sit for about an hour and sign books. we have enough copies i think if you would like to purchase a copy of the book anchor did to do that. thank you all for coming and enjoy the rest of your evening. [applause].

[inaudible] >> when i tune into it on the weekend. watching the non- fiction authors is the best television. >> they can have a longer conversation and delve into their subject. book tv weekends we bring you author after author. and it's the work of fascinating people. i am a c-span fan.k, >> amy as our guest and here is a cover of her book. becoming nicole. who is to call?