"This is a beautifully written thesis and superbly organized.... Everything in these covers is a pleasure to contemplate."
Professor David Martin
Sociologist of Religion
London School of Economics
“It's not often that books from academia are unputdownable and required reading but Baskerville makes a habit of writing such. … No claim is undocumented, and yet most uncharacteristically of his scholastic brethren, he is eminently readable, which of course makes him a damned fine writer.” -- Amazon reader
Taken Into Custody
The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family
(2007)
Point of View Radio Interview
(based on article in the New English Review)
9 July 2020
"This book is nothing short of horrifying..."
Amazon reader
"The Sexual Jihad: The Global Rise of Sexual and Religious Radicalism"
Since the collapse of European Communism the two most dynamic ideological trends in global politics have been religious and sexual: religious radicalism, especially Islamist, and sexual radicalism in the form of feminist and more recently homosexualist politics. Both have roots in the older socialis and Communist ideologies and likewise reject the traditional Christian values of the West and promise sweeping social transformation, using the instruments of the state. Both also place central importance on regulating sexual behavior. Though mutually incompatible in content, both aspire to political power at the expense of the traditional Christian West and aim to achieve it by changing the terms of sexuality. In some cases, they are also willing to make common cause. Yet political radicalism (including both religious and sexual radicalism) originated in the West. Some argue it originated in English Puritanism, where similarities are seen with today’s Islamism, not least in the latter’s “puritanical” aspiration of controlling sex. Yet not all forms of religious radicalism are identical; neither do they regulate sexuality in the same way. Puritanism led to societies of stability, freedom, and prosperity. Islamism (so far) has led only to instability, stagnation,
and terror.
Read the rest in New Male Studies.
"Sex and the Problem of Human Rights"
"‘Sex and the Problem of Human Rights,’ in the new issue of The Independent Review...is, by far, the most sober and rational statement of the dilemmas and contradictions posed by social problems and political issues. It is not often that I find myself nodding and saying to myself at least: this is exactly the way in which I would have framed the issues."
Irving Louis Horowitz
Hannah Arendt Distinguished University Professor
of Sociology and Political Science
Rutgers University
Founder, Transaction Publishers
Read in The Independent Review.
About the Author
Stephen Baskerville
is an academic scholar of 30+ years professional experience, most recently as Professor of Government at Patrick Henry College. He is the author of 3 major books and more than 100 articles on politics, religion, history, law, and other topics. Read more...
Not Peace But a Sword
The Political Theology
of the English Revolution
(1993, full edition 2018)
"Don’t Be Impressed by Western Ideologues
Posing as Scholars."
As Hungary did last year, Romania seeks to prevent parlor intellectuals from poisoning its rich academic culture with political ideology.
Read in the ActiveNews.ro (4 October 2020).
"Jerry Falwell, Jr and the Tragedy of Christian Higher Education"
One leader’s antics reflect a larger flaw besetting
Evangelical colleges and universities.
Read in the New English Review (September 2020).
"Purging Christian Higher Education"
Rooting out political heretics is a practice we now associate with liberal secular universities, despite pretenses of "academic freedom" and claims to protect it with the lifelong employment guarantee known as "tenure." But today, the practice appears just as likely at conservative Christian institutions. In fact, we may now be seeing a nationwide purge of the ideologically retrograde from Evangelical colleges, universities, and seminaries. [...]
Read the rest in The American Thinker (10 May 2020).
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"Not Very Civic Education"
Review of John M. Ellis, The Breakdown of Higher Education (2020)
The first striking feature of this book is simply that its existence confirms its own
argument, since such criticism cannot be expressed from within the universities
themselves. All comes from outside, sometimes by professors who have retired
(like Ellis) or been rejected or ejected, because “career termination [awaits]
those who challenge campus orthodoxy.” Ellis’s case is illustrated by the glaring incapacity of this institutional concentration of savants to critically evaluate, of all topics, itself. After all, this subject might have been appropriate for a scholar of politics or education (perhaps otherwise buried in pointless esoterica and the “impenetrable jargon” Ellis ridicules). Instead it is left to an emeritus professor of German literature, one relatively immune from punishment. [...]
Read the rest in Academic Questions (Fall 2020).
"This book is a tremendous and much needed report on how family courts and government policies are harming children."
Phyllis Schlafly
"Conservative Diffidence and the Political Exploitation of George Floyd"
As violent protesters destroy public property, public officials in the US and abroad are being accused of failing to stand up to them and protect people and property. But the failure of nerve in our leaders is of much longer duration and much more serious than a few statues. Politicians -- plus journalists, academics, churches, and everyone -- have been terrified to face the real problems of the black and other poor communities -- and we will continue paying the price.
Read in the New English Review (July 2020).
Books
Justice in His Kingdom
Interview
5 May 2020
The New Politics of Sex
The Sexual Revolution, Civil Liberties, and the Growth of Government Power
(2017)
"Professor Baskerville has written what well may be the most important book of 2017. He has written a masterly and authoritative account of how 'sexual radicalism' has infected and transformed culture, politics, and the legal system."
Deal Hudson
Founder, Crisis magazine
President, Morley Institute
"Is This a 'Decent Left'?"
In Harper's magazine, some well established leftist and liberal (and neo-conservative) intellectuals
deplore the extremism of the radical left Cancel Culture, and call for 'justice" and "open debate". But are they really any more virtuous than the campus and street radicals who aim to silence forcibly those with whom they disagree -- or just more successful at purging their rivals?
Read in the New English Review (August 2020).
"This is the most frightening book I have read in years. Baskerville is relentless in showing how our society has waged war against marriage, and how little judicial protection is available today to those of us who resist the attack."
Phil Lawler, Editor
Catholic World News
StephenBaskerville.com
Articles (click for more)
Four New Reviews of
The New Politics of Sex:
Interview on the Suzanne Venker Show
"The Divorce Industry and the Myth of the Deadbeat Dad"
(June 14, 2020)
"Is There Really a Fatherhood Crisis?"
“Fatherhood Crisis” is "an excellent and very important article -- surely one of the most important we have published in TIR."
Robert Higgs, Editor, The Independent Review
"I write once again to congratulate you on the high-quality, thought-provoking,
and penetrating articles you publish in The Independent Review. I thought
Stephen Baskerville's "Is There Really a Fatherhood Crisis?" was particularly
insightful."
James Otteson, Philosopher
Read in The Independent Review.
Books (click images for details)
You will find no platitudes in these books. They will push you to think about important matters in ways you have certainly not done. In each case, what you will find is very different from the clichés presented by academic scholars, media, and other received authorities. That these books contain much more than the standard academic pablum accounts for the huge obstruction each one encountered from powerful interests that fiercely opposed publication. None of these books waited less than 6 years to be published, and one waited over 30. Multiple written agreements were simply broken by publishers when they found themselves under pressure for having agreed to publish a book (documents available). The fact that these books and other writings cost the author at least two academic positions further testifies that they contain information that is worth knowing and that some people would rather you not know. After all, no one loses a university job today for writing tedious pedantry...
"Baskerville has exposed a major abuse of power that is not only responsible for destroying families and for the social disorder that ensues from that. It also rationalizes massive government spending and violations of our constitutional freedoms by courts, bureaucracies, and other arms of the state."
Grover Norquist, President
Americans for Tax Reform
Stephen Baskerville's
Internet Site
"The New Iron Curtain"
Colleges Use Legal Innovations to Punish Dissent
and Purge Academic Heretics
Read in the College Fix (17 September 2020).
Unconventional Perspectives on
Politics, History, Religion, Law, Sex
& Higher Education
“As I have told my adult masters students...‘Until you read this, you don't know what you're talking about.’ ... Baskerville is a rhetorical master.... You cannot pass this up...an absolute must read. It's transformative.”
Dr Frederick Feldman
"I could not put this endlessly fascinating book down after opening it. ... Anyone concerned about civil liberties or the family will benefit from reading it."
Hans Bader, Senior Attorney Competitive Enterprise Institute
Interview with Dr Jennifer Roback-Morse
"The Divorce Court Nightmare"
(January 3, 2020)