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Preface
- The University Press of Kentucky
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PREFACE Seven years ago Regent University established the annual Symposium in Honor of Ronald Reagan, designed to bring to the campus leading scholars and public intellectuals to discuss matters of vital importance to American culture and society. The response of the public has been impressive: • C-SPAN has aired the symposia; • Several books from the symposia have garnered favorable critic reviews; and • Audiences of 500 to 700 have attended each symposium. The scholars and public intellectuals who have lectured include Jean Bethke Elshtain (Chicago), Brandice Canes-Wrone (Princeton), Harvey Mansfield (Harvard), George Edwards (Texas A&M), Jeffry Tulis (Texas), Hugh Heclo (George Mason), Hadley Arkes (Amherst), Daniel Dreisbach (American), George Nash (the Kirk Center), Stephen Knott (U.S. Naval War College), Michael Novak (American Enterprise Institute), Paul Cantor (Virginia), Charles Kesler (Claremont ), Michael Barone (the Washington Examiner), Andrew Busch (Claremont), William Kristol (the Weekly Standard), James Ceaser (Virginia), Stephen Hayward (the American Enterprise Institute), Marvin Olasky (World magazine), Robert Spitzer (SUNY), Peter Lawler (Berry College), Wilfred McClay (Tennessee—Chattanooga), Ken Myers (Mars Hill Audio), Allan Carlson (Hillsdale), and Steven Skowronek (Yale). And critical reviews of the books emanating from the symposia include the following: • The New York Times (October 7, 2007) review of The Future of Conservatism: Conflict and Consensus in the Post-Reagan Era (2007), by Jonathan Rauch (Brookings Institution), says, “[It] is as smart and stimulating a collection of political essays as viii Preface I’ve read in years, in part because it soars above the partisan potshots and petty maneuvering that preoccupy the political commentariat.” • Of The Future of Religion in American Politics (2009), Peter Augustine Lawler (Berry College) writes, “[It] is a genuinely outstanding collection of brilliant and accessible essays by many of the leading authorities on religion and politics in America. Many of the essays could easily stand alone as the best introduction to religion and politics available.” • Robert G. Kaufman (Pepperdine University) says of The Enduring Reagan (2009), “[It is] hands-down the finest compilation on Ronald Reagan,” and “No compilation comes close to matching its insight and credibility.” • The Presidency in the Twenty-first Century (2011) earned the following blind, prepublication review by a critic: “The contributors constitute a veritable Who’s Who of leading scholars on the American Presidency and their essays meet the high standard that one would expect from such illustrious authors. . . . The essays are not only timely, but in some ways timeless.” The stage is set, then, for American Culture in Peril, which treats a subject of keen interest not only to President Reagan, but also to a large cross section of American scholars and public intellectuals. Not everyone agrees with President Reagan’s assessment of American culture , but who could disagree that his views set the stage for a lively debate about the matter? And who could disagree with the notion that culture is like the rudder on a ship, determining the nation’s direction ? As defined, the cultural rudder is “a guiding or controlling force or influence” in American society. In short, culture is at the heart of what America is and where it is going. RONALD REAGAN: SETTING THE STAGE FOR DEBATE Thirty years or so ago, when America struggled from the decadelong malaise of the 1970s, Ronald Reagan rejected the notion that the sun had set on a once-great country. He countered: “It’s morning in America.” Which reflected not only his optimism but also his [18.212.87.137] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:08 GMT) Preface ix belief that Americans must fight to retain the foundation for their optimism. • “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom , and then lost it, have never known it again.”1 • “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”2 • “America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, ‘You can go to...