In Defense of Tradition

Richard M. Weaver, a thinker and writer celebrated for his unsparing diagnoses and realistic remedies for the ills of our age, is known largely through a few of his works that remain in print. This new collection of Weaver's shorter writings, assembled by Ted J. Smith III, Weaver's leading biographer, presents many long-out-of-print and never-before-published works that give new range and depth to Weaver's sweeping thought. Though several of the works of Richard M. Weaver remain very much in print, "a large body of his work has remained largely unexamined," writes Professor Smith in the introduction. Included are eleven previously unpublished essays and speeches that were left in near-final form at the time of Weaver's death in 1963. Their presentation "exhausts the body of significant completed manuscripts contained in the three known collections of [Weaver's] papers." In all, there are some one hundred twenty-six essays, speeches, book reviews, and editorials. Professor Ted J. Smith III is Professor of Mass Communications at Virginia Commonwealth University.