Tolkien's Birthday
No doubt: whoever reads Tolkien’s work with at least an ounce of sympathy for the traditions and for the history that made the greatness of the West cannot escape deep fascination, as Tolkien has managed to shape a “subcreation” that is the mythopoetical quintessence of everything that the defines our civilisation – for the best as for the worst. Indeed, Tolkien’s oeuvre is much more than just a medley, a pastiche of diverse narrative strands; it is a unique recasting that convincingly makes all later traditions look and even feel like much later variations of the true, “original” stories as contained in his own legendarium.
David Engels
Book review: Jozef Pilsudski: Founding Father of Modern Poland
Written in a crisp and matter-of-fact style, with copious footnotes legitimizing it as an academic work, this volume can compete for the best Piłsudski biography to-date.