Listed alphabetically by author

David Aikman, "One Word of Truth: A Portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn" (a Trinity Forum Reading, 1997)
In 1989, David Aikman, then a journalist with Time magazine, was granted the first major interview Solzhenitsyn had given an American news organization for years. Aikman's engaging and lively account portrays an amazing man who has devoted his life to the battle for truth. Read by the author, with an introduction by Os Guinness. 107 minutes
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Louise Cowan, "The Necessity of the Classics" (from The Intercollegiate Review, Fall 2001)
The classics are, argues Louise Cowan, "the primary curricular need of our time." The classics are poetic in the root sense of the word: they are a form of making (poesis), based on mimesis, "the envisioning, or imagining, of fictional analogies, a kind of knowing different from philosophy or history and yet occupying an irreplaceable position in the quest for wisdom." Cowan (a recipient of the National Humanities Medal) insists that what we label the classics "have become classics because they elicit greatness of soul," and that such aspiration can only be informed by such works. Read by Ken Myers. 35 minutes
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Matthew B. Crawford, "Shop Class as Soulcraft" (from The New Atlantis, Summer 2006)
In the age of think tanks, consulting firms, and IKEA, craftsmanship seems to be in decline. Shop class is becoming rarer, and our children are told that college is the ticket to an "open future" as a "knowledge worker." This rejection of craftsmanship wrongly ignores the cognitive, social, and remunerative rewards of skilled manual work, and wrongly assumes that white-collar work always engages the mind. Matthew B. Crawford recounts life as a motorcycle mechanic and makes a case for the manual trades. Read by Ken Myers. 55 minutes
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Joshua P. Hochschild, "Globalization: Ancient and Modern" (from The Intercollegiate Review, Spring 2006)
Beginning with the refreshing observation of the sheer ugliness of the word "globalization" ("an adjective, converted into a barbaric verb, then forced into service as a still more barbaric noun"), Hochschild observes that this misbegotten word labels a poorly defined concept. Despite its vagueness, it "suggests a trend toward increased economic and political interdependence, which at once fosters and is fostered by cultural homogenization." Hochschild goes on to examine the effects of this trend on local communities and insists that any effort to evaluate globalization requires a return to a "political teleology," reflection on the ends of politics given the ends of human being. Read by Ken Myers. 36 Minutes
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Roger Kimball, "Leszek Kolakowski and the Anatomy of Totalitarianism" (from The New Criterion, June 2005)
Born in 1927 in Poland, Leszek Kolakowski grew out of his youthful Stalinism to become one of the most penetrating critics of Marxism. In his masterful three-volume Main Currents of Marxism, he concluded: "The self-deification of mankind, to which Marxism gave philosophical expression, has ended in the same way as all such attempts, whether individual or collective: it has revealed itself as the farcical aspect of human bondage." Kolakowski's diagnosis of the spiritual crisis of modernity goes far beyond his critique of Marxism; in a variety of books, essays, and public addresses, he regularly returned to the problem of modern culture's denial of the sacred. This essay by Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion, was written on the occasion of the release of a new edition of Main Currents of Marxism, and sets the arguments in that book in the wider context of Kolakowski's other work. Read by Ken Myers. 35 minutes
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Yuval Levin, "The Moral Challenge of Modern Science" (from The New Atlantis, Fall 2006)
It is commonly assumed that science is a morally neutral set of practices which may be used for good or bad purposes. But Yuval Levin, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, insists that science has always been "a profoundly moral enterprise, aimed at improving the condition of the human race, relieving suffering, enhancing health, and enriching life." Because this moral dynamic is so deeply assumed, our society finds it difficult to assess how we ought to use science when the improvement of health comes into conflict with other social goods. In this article, Levin calls for a more deliberate awareness of how science shapes how we ask and answer moral questions together. Read by Ken Myers. 44 minutes
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Caitrin Nicol, "Brave New World at 75" (from The New Atlantis, Spring 2007)
"It is easy to imagine that we see the shadows of our society in Huxley's vision of the future. But could it be that our insistence on seeing Huxley's book as an exceedingly successful prophecy actually prevents us from recognizing its real insight? Is there a way for us to understand the book free of the great distorting influence of our own times?" That's what Caitrin Nicol accomplishes in this essay which combines a survey of contemporary reviews of Brave New World with some thoughtful reflections on happiness and freedom. Read by Ken Myers. 44 minutes
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John Pollock, "William Wilberforce: A Man Who Changed His Times" (a Trinity Forum Reading, 1996)
"God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of manners." William Wilberforce, a young parliamentarian, recorded these audacious ambitions in his diary on October 28, 1787. Forty-six years later and three days before his death, slavery was abolished throughout the entire British empire. Over the course of these years he went from being one of the most vilified men in Europe to one of the most loved and revered in the world. This biographical account of Wilberforce's life and work was written by John Pollock, and is introduced by J. Douglas Holladay. Read by Ken Myers. 50 minutes
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Richard Sherlock, "The Secret of Straussianism" (Modern Age, Summer 2006)
Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century. In this essay, Richard Sherlock explores the significance of Strauss's methodology, focusing on how he understood the communication of ideas in classical and modern thought about political order. Strauss's deep, insightful readings and profound respect for the writers of seminal works manifested a powerful apologetic for the idea of "classic natural right," even as his intellectual esotericism masked a critical gap in his political philosophy. Read by Ken Myers. 36 minutes
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Ralph C. Wood, "Rapidly Rises the Morning Tide: An Essay on P. D. James's The Children of Men" (Theology Today, vol. 51, no. 20 (July 1994))
"The key to P. D. James's fiction, especially her later work, is her Christianity." So argues Ralph C. Wood, University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University. "She regards our cultural malaise as having theological no less than ethical cause." In this essay, Wood discusses the way in which the futuristic dystopia of her novel, The Children of Men, reveals much about the West's modern spiritual confusion and about the possible sources of hope beyond that chaos. Read by Ken Myers. 39 minutes
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