Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, published in 1818, took Britain by storm. As he explains in the preface he wrote for a later edition, he had begun to realize that the reading public, after enjoying nine Scottish novels in four years, was beginning to typecast the unknown “author of Waverley” as a Scottish localist
I have paused the classes for part of the Summer in order to give some students, who have told me they are lagging behind, the chance to catch up.
The MAGA coalition, if we can believe the media, is about to explode into antagonistic fragments. While many Trump voters are still loyal, others, following the lead of his would-be successors, are in rebellion. The cause of the rebellion is indicative of what is wrong with the entire movement.
One important service Scott rendered his own people was the recovery of the Highlands as part of Scotland. Before Sir Walter, many Lowland Scots had shared the English view of the highlanders as brigands who periodically swept down from the hills to steal everything not nailed down. This was not an entirely false conception, as Scott freely acknowledged,
I have often imagined award ceremonies to pay tribute to what is most typically American. My first thought was a PT Barnum Award for the American who most contributed to the degradation of the American character.
July 7-12 2025
The Archaic Age of Greece
In short, Lafayette and his ilk symbolize how the good intentions of the American founding paved the American Hell.
For the average Scottish or English reader, Waverley must have been an exhilarating backwards trip through time and history, which enabled him to see both the feudal and tribal loyalties of Scots who adhered to the Stuart cause in much the same way their ancestors had flocked to the standards of Wallace and the Bruces.
Although we have been wrapped up in the history and literature of Archaic Greece, we should not entirely neglect more recent phases of our history and civilization. Once or twice a year, I return to the works of Walter Scott, on whom I have, over the years, written one or two essays and given several lectures.
As an opponent of every war the USA has provoked and entered since the justifiable Mexican War, I am less than delighted with the acceleration of US aggression against Iran.
