Tento autor bol osamelou postavou amerického akademického života, ktorý učil angličtinu na Chicagskej univerzite. Bol známy ako tvorca konzervativizmu v polovici 20. storočia a ako autorita v modernej rétorike. Ako platonistický filozof skúmal problém univerzálií a kritizoval nominalizmus, pôsobil ako literárny a kultúrny kritik a teoretik ľudskej prirodzenosti a spoločnosti. Jeho spisy, najmä tie, ktoré sa zaoberajú dôsledkami myšlienok a etikou rétoriky, zostávajú vplyvné, najmä medzi konzervatívnymi teoretikmi a bádateľmi amerického Juhu.
Kniha obsahuje pozoruhodnou kritiku moderního masového, atomizovaného člověka; industrializace a snahy o naprosté ovládnutí přírody; moderních masmédií; ale i takových kulturních proudů jako jazz v hudbě či impresionismus v malířství; dále smazávání rozdílů mezi muži a ženami, jakož i pomužštění žen; a samozřejmě i laciné víry v pokrok v situaci, kdy se všude kolem šíří barbarství.
While Richard M. Weaver is best known for the classic Ideas Have Consequences, the foundation of his career was this study of his native South. Calling the Southern tradition "the last non-materialist civilization in the Western world," he traced its roots to feudalism, chivalry, religiosity, and aristocratic conventions. The Old South, he concluded, "may indeed be a hall hung with splendid tapestries in which no one would care to live; but from them we can learn something of how to live." Weaver’s exploration of the ideals and ideas of the Southern tradition as expressed in the military histories, autobiographies, diaries, and novels of the era following the Civil War—especially those written by the men and women on the losing side—is offered to a new generation of readers for whom that tradition has fallen into disrepute and who can scarcely imagine a life rooted in nature, the soil, and a powerful sense of honor. The Southern Tradition at Bay is, as Jeffrey Hart noted, the work of a man who admired what "is admirable indeed, and that is the foundation of wisdom and indeed sanity."
The Cultural Crisis of Our Time
This classic work by the author of Ideas Have Consequences boldly examines the Intellectual roots of our current cultural crisis.
Originally published in 1948, at the height of post-World War II optimism and confidence in collective security, this title uses words hard as cannonballs to present an unsparing diagnosis of the ills of the modern age. It argues that the decline of Western civilization resulted from the rising acceptance of relativism over absolute reality.