This week’s addition to the Blogroll is Dr. Thomas Fleming, president of the Rockford Institute and editor-in-chief of Chronicles magazine. Dr. Fleming is a classicist by training, and he never fails to challenge my assumptions about the ancient and medieval worlds when I read or listen to one of his presentations. I believe the main reason for this is that he does not share the modern (post-1700) liberal assumptions and baggage nearly everyone else now living takes to his study of the past.
The Rockford Institute’s site has at least two features this site’s readers would find useful. First, the Autodidact (self-teaching) category contains several posts that can be helpful for people exploring the Western tradition outside of an institutional setting such as a university. Second, the Booklog category contains in-depth discussions of several classic works. For the last few months, Dr. Fleming has been posting on Virgil’s Aeneid.
I also highly recommend Dr. Fleming’s book The Morality of Everyday Life, portions of which I assign to my graduate students.
The Western Tradition 