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America's British Culture
It is an incontestable fact of history that the United States, although a multiethnic nation, derives its language, mores, political purposes, and institutions from Great Britain. The two nations share a common history, religious heritage, pattern of law and politics, and a body of great literature. Yet, America cannot be wholly confident that this heritage will endure forever. Declining standards in education and the strident claims of multiculturalists threaten to sever the vital Anglo-American link that ensures cultural order and continuity. In America's British Culture, now in paperback, Russell Kirk offers a brilliant summary account and spirited defense of the culture that the people of the United States have inherited from Great Britain.
150 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
3 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
About the author
Russell Kirk
174 books312 followersFor more than forty years, Russell Kirk was in the thick of the intellectual controversies of his time. He is the author of some thirty-two books, hundreds of periodical essays, and many short stories. Both Time and Newsweek have described him as one of America’s leading thinkers, and The New York Times acknowledged the scale of his influence when in 1998 it wrote that Kirk’s 1953 book The Conservative Mind “gave American conservatives an identity and a genealogy and catalyzed the postwar movement.”
Dr. Kirk wrote and spoke on modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes. He addressed audiences on hundreds of American campuses and appeared often on television and radio.
He edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman and was founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age. He contributed articles to numerous serious periodicals on either side of the Atlantic. For a quarter of a century he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published, through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Over the years he contributed to more than a hundred serious periodicals in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland, among them Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Fortune, Humanitas, The Contemporary Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, World Review, Crisis, History Today, Policy Review, Commonweal, Kenyon Review, The Review of Politics, and The World and I.
He is the only American to hold the highest arts degree (earned) of the senior Scottish university—doctor of letters of St. Andrews. He received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his master’s degree from Duke University. He received honorary doctorates from twelve American universities and colleges.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a senior fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Constitutional Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland. The Christopher Award was conferred upon him for his book Eliot and His Age, and he received the Ann Radcliffe Award of the Count Dracula Society for his Gothic Fiction. The Third World Fantasy Convention gave him its award for best short fiction for his short story, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding.” In 1984 he received the Weaver Award of the Ingersoll Prizes for his scholarly writing. For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori Prize for historical writing.
More than a million copies of Kirk’s books have been sold, and several have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages. His second book, The Conservative Mind (1953), is one of the most widely reviewed and discussed studies of political ideas in this century and has gone through seven editions. Seventeen of his books are in print at present, and he has written prefaces to many other books, contributed essays to them, or edited them.
Dr. Kirk debated with such well-known speakers as Norman Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, Carey McWilliams, John Roche, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Harrington, Max Lerner, Michael Novak, Sidney Lens, William Kunstler, Hubert Humphrey, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Clifford Case, Ayn Rand, Eugene McCarthy, Leonard Weinglass, Louis Lomax, Harold Taylor, Clark Kerr, Saul Alinsky, Staughton Lynd, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, and Tom Hayden. Several of his public lectures have been broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.
Among Kirk’s literary and scholarly friends were T. S. Eliot, Roy Campbell, Wyndham Lewis, Donald Davidson, George Scott-Moncrieff, Richard Weaver, Max Picard, Ray Bradbury, Bernard Iddings Bell, Paul Roche, James McAuley, Thomas Howard, Wilhem Roepke, Robert Speaight
Dr. Kirk wrote and spoke on modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes. He addressed audiences on hundreds of American campuses and appeared often on television and radio.
He edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman and was founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age. He contributed articles to numerous serious periodicals on either side of the Atlantic. For a quarter of a century he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published, through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Over the years he contributed to more than a hundred serious periodicals in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland, among them Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Fortune, Humanitas, The Contemporary Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, World Review, Crisis, History Today, Policy Review, Commonweal, Kenyon Review, The Review of Politics, and The World and I.
He is the only American to hold the highest arts degree (earned) of the senior Scottish university—doctor of letters of St. Andrews. He received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his master’s degree from Duke University. He received honorary doctorates from twelve American universities and colleges.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a senior fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Constitutional Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland. The Christopher Award was conferred upon him for his book Eliot and His Age, and he received the Ann Radcliffe Award of the Count Dracula Society for his Gothic Fiction. The Third World Fantasy Convention gave him its award for best short fiction for his short story, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding.” In 1984 he received the Weaver Award of the Ingersoll Prizes for his scholarly writing. For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori Prize for historical writing.
More than a million copies of Kirk’s books have been sold, and several have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages. His second book, The Conservative Mind (1953), is one of the most widely reviewed and discussed studies of political ideas in this century and has gone through seven editions. Seventeen of his books are in print at present, and he has written prefaces to many other books, contributed essays to them, or edited them.
Dr. Kirk debated with such well-known speakers as Norman Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, Carey McWilliams, John Roche, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Harrington, Max Lerner, Michael Novak, Sidney Lens, William Kunstler, Hubert Humphrey, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Clifford Case, Ayn Rand, Eugene McCarthy, Leonard Weinglass, Louis Lomax, Harold Taylor, Clark Kerr, Saul Alinsky, Staughton Lynd, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, and Tom Hayden. Several of his public lectures have been broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.
Among Kirk’s literary and scholarly friends were T. S. Eliot, Roy Campbell, Wyndham Lewis, Donald Davidson, George Scott-Moncrieff, Richard Weaver, Max Picard, Ray Bradbury, Bernard Iddings Bell, Paul Roche, James McAuley, Thomas Howard, Wilhem Roepke, Robert Speaight
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 28, 2020
While reading America's British Culture I was reminded of an occasion on which I witnessed an acquaintance of mine make the claim that "the Anglo-American system of law is based on white supremacy." Those kinds of statements, common though they may be, do not reflect any kind of careful historical analysis (and I would be very surprised if my acquaintance could name five essential features of "Anglo-American" law), but rather a general dissatisfaction with what Kirk calls in this book and in others our "inherited culture."
This book was initially written in 1993, though like Robert Royal's 1492 and All That: Political Manipulations of History, published a year earlier, it addresses themes that are still prevalent today. Herein, Kirk defends the culture that America has inherited from the British against the attacks on it by "multiculturalists," who today might be called "social justice warriors." While the labels to describe such social and political malcontents have increased, their talking points and nomenclature have remained remarkably consistent, making Kirk's case every bit as relevant now as it was nearly three decades ago.
Kirk defends America's British culture for two reasons: the importance of what he calls "a general culture" for social cohesion among any group of people, and the particular benefits that the British culture itself has bestowed on the American people. Kirk does not believe this culture to be perfect now, nor to have been at any point in the past, but does think it to have been unique in its ability to secure certain social and political virtues.
Nor does he claim that, as some identitarians do today, that this culture is the exclusive domain of particular ethnic groups. Quite the opposite, actually, as Kirk quotes Christopher Dawson to the effect that "a common way of life involves a common view of life, common standards of behavior and common standards of value, and consequently a culture is a spiritual community which owes its unity to common beliefs and common ways of thought far more than to any unanimity of physical type..." Indeed, Kirk observes that the British influence in American culture has persisted through multiple waves of immigration - from Europe, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere in the Americas - which have made descendants of the British a minority in modern America. Through all of that, this culture and its accretions have become a shared inheritance which gives unity to these otherwise diverse groups of peoples.
Through the middle chapters, Kirk explores the various ways that British culture and institutions - from language and literature to law and representative government to manners and mores - have influenced American society. The modern reader, schooled by social media and ideologically tortured history, might be surprised to learn that these features developed over several centuries and without any clear connection to the allegedly rampant antipathies that we are told form the entire basis for our civilization. These chapters, indeed, are excellent short resources on how different aspects of American society developed, which in turn shows why they deserve to be defended.
The first and final chapters, then, form the opening and closing statements for this defense against the prosecutorial tendencies of the "ideologues of multiculturalism," who would intentionally or unintentionally undermine the cohesiveness of American society by depriving it of its general culture. The sense here is not that different cultures should not be studied (in fact, Kirk relates how his own study of other cultures during his childhood enriched his understanding of the world), but that we cannot become a people without a common culture, particularly when the alternative cultures being advocated are positioned as in a state of inveterate enmity with our inherited culture. In a quote that could have been aimed at today's headlines (or Twitter feeds), Kirk relates Albert Schlesinger, Jr's question about "What will hold our people together" if we "abandon our historical commitment to an American identity?"
The loss in such a proposition, Kirk adds, would be to everyone, even those for whose benefit the attacks on American culture are ostensibly undertaken. "What fanatic ideologues demand commonly is bad for the class of persons they claim to represent," Kirk writes. Echoing Thomas Sowell, he adds that "To deny 'minorities' the benefits of America's established culture would work their ruin."
The way to preserve American culture, Kirk concludes, is not by repaying hate with hate. Rather, he writes, "Love of an inherited culture has the power to cast out the envy and hatred of that culture's adversaries." In America's British Culture, Kirk gives Americans of all backgrounds a reason to love their inherited culture, to work for its improvement and, now, rejuvenation, and to defend it in its hour of need against the now decades-old attacks of radicals bent on cultural destruction.
This book was initially written in 1993, though like Robert Royal's 1492 and All That: Political Manipulations of History, published a year earlier, it addresses themes that are still prevalent today. Herein, Kirk defends the culture that America has inherited from the British against the attacks on it by "multiculturalists," who today might be called "social justice warriors." While the labels to describe such social and political malcontents have increased, their talking points and nomenclature have remained remarkably consistent, making Kirk's case every bit as relevant now as it was nearly three decades ago.
Kirk defends America's British culture for two reasons: the importance of what he calls "a general culture" for social cohesion among any group of people, and the particular benefits that the British culture itself has bestowed on the American people. Kirk does not believe this culture to be perfect now, nor to have been at any point in the past, but does think it to have been unique in its ability to secure certain social and political virtues.
Nor does he claim that, as some identitarians do today, that this culture is the exclusive domain of particular ethnic groups. Quite the opposite, actually, as Kirk quotes Christopher Dawson to the effect that "a common way of life involves a common view of life, common standards of behavior and common standards of value, and consequently a culture is a spiritual community which owes its unity to common beliefs and common ways of thought far more than to any unanimity of physical type..." Indeed, Kirk observes that the British influence in American culture has persisted through multiple waves of immigration - from Europe, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere in the Americas - which have made descendants of the British a minority in modern America. Through all of that, this culture and its accretions have become a shared inheritance which gives unity to these otherwise diverse groups of peoples.
Through the middle chapters, Kirk explores the various ways that British culture and institutions - from language and literature to law and representative government to manners and mores - have influenced American society. The modern reader, schooled by social media and ideologically tortured history, might be surprised to learn that these features developed over several centuries and without any clear connection to the allegedly rampant antipathies that we are told form the entire basis for our civilization. These chapters, indeed, are excellent short resources on how different aspects of American society developed, which in turn shows why they deserve to be defended.
The first and final chapters, then, form the opening and closing statements for this defense against the prosecutorial tendencies of the "ideologues of multiculturalism," who would intentionally or unintentionally undermine the cohesiveness of American society by depriving it of its general culture. The sense here is not that different cultures should not be studied (in fact, Kirk relates how his own study of other cultures during his childhood enriched his understanding of the world), but that we cannot become a people without a common culture, particularly when the alternative cultures being advocated are positioned as in a state of inveterate enmity with our inherited culture. In a quote that could have been aimed at today's headlines (or Twitter feeds), Kirk relates Albert Schlesinger, Jr's question about "What will hold our people together" if we "abandon our historical commitment to an American identity?"
The loss in such a proposition, Kirk adds, would be to everyone, even those for whose benefit the attacks on American culture are ostensibly undertaken. "What fanatic ideologues demand commonly is bad for the class of persons they claim to represent," Kirk writes. Echoing Thomas Sowell, he adds that "To deny 'minorities' the benefits of America's established culture would work their ruin."
The way to preserve American culture, Kirk concludes, is not by repaying hate with hate. Rather, he writes, "Love of an inherited culture has the power to cast out the envy and hatred of that culture's adversaries." In America's British Culture, Kirk gives Americans of all backgrounds a reason to love their inherited culture, to work for its improvement and, now, rejuvenation, and to defend it in its hour of need against the now decades-old attacks of radicals bent on cultural destruction.
March 28, 2018
Although there are many salient and inspired passages peppered throughout much of Kirk's work, he particularly won me over with this passage. Those who would seek to destroy our positive connections to our history, haven't a damn clue what they are doing:
"In our age when books of every sort are available, try to imagine what a good book meant to an American in the year 1700, say. During the dark hour, no illumination existed for reading could be had but the candle, the rush light, or the betty oil lamp. Books of any sort were few and costly. There existed no television, no radio, no films in theaters, no videos, no tapes, no airplanes, no railroads, no automobiles. Only through the reading of books might most men and women escape from the provinciality of place and the provinciality of time.
Books in 1700 were eagerly sought after by all who could read; for from books one might learn answers to ultimate questions.
In the year 1992, some Americans abominate the sight of good books; and others shrug their shoulders at King Lear, or The Pilgrim's Progress, or even Robinson Crusoe. Such books, we are told, were written in a foreign land by "dead white males." No doubt; but as Gustave Le Bon insists, "The dead alone give us energy."
"In our age when books of every sort are available, try to imagine what a good book meant to an American in the year 1700, say. During the dark hour, no illumination existed for reading could be had but the candle, the rush light, or the betty oil lamp. Books of any sort were few and costly. There existed no television, no radio, no films in theaters, no videos, no tapes, no airplanes, no railroads, no automobiles. Only through the reading of books might most men and women escape from the provinciality of place and the provinciality of time.
Books in 1700 were eagerly sought after by all who could read; for from books one might learn answers to ultimate questions.
In the year 1992, some Americans abominate the sight of good books; and others shrug their shoulders at King Lear, or The Pilgrim's Progress, or even Robinson Crusoe. Such books, we are told, were written in a foreign land by "dead white males." No doubt; but as Gustave Le Bon insists, "The dead alone give us energy."
March 3, 2018
As a British person coming to the New World, I thought this would be a good book to carry with me. And I certainly enjoyed it. The thesis was known to me and isn't in itself controversial. But the writer certainly instructed, stimulated, and entertained as he surveyed the common language, law, literature, political structures, and mores of Britain and America. He also ventured onto more controversial ground by rejecting the call to destroy our shared heritage in the name of multiculturalism.
Really liked it.
Really liked it.
May 14, 2025
The book begins and ends with arguments against multicultural education that are still salient today. A major argument throughout the work is that "cultures cannot be deliberately created; they arise, rather, from the theophanic events that bring cults into existence." While they arise through circumstance and practice, the perpetuation of a culture requires constant vigilance to protect the core institutions and remember the major values of a culture. While this is all well and good, I was hoping for a bit more detail on America's Britishness. Even with a modern multicultural education the English origin of America's language, laws, universities, religion, and political systems has remained well-known. Kirk relates a funny story about Jefferson: seeing the College of William & Mary as too theocratic, Jefferson first attempted to persuade Washington to transplant the Swiss School of Geneva, and failing this, founded the University of Virgina. Kirk also appears to use Burke to advance a distinction between a "delegate" who follows the directions of the masses and a "representative" who shares his group's interests and is willing to follow his own convictions rather than his elector's demands. Perhaps useful to an international audience curious to learn about America.
November 18, 2010
Read "Roots of American Order" instead.
Read
November 21, 2009None
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews