Tag: Robert Conquest

Promoted from the Ricochet Member Feed by Editors Created with Sketch. When Did Librarians Get Woke?

 
Local Librarian // Image credit shutterstock.com

What image comes to mind when you think of or hear the word librarian? For me that image is of a conservative person (and truth be told always a woman). By conservative, I refer not to politics or ideology (I imagine librarians have always come in a variety of ideological flavors) but instead of one with a conservative sensibility or temperament which includes a certain respect for tradition and decorum. And, that makes sense (at least to me) for those who are charged with preserving and providing access to a significant portion of our cultural heritage. In recent years, however, that image is fading fast for me.

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In the glorious lull between the end of exams and the arrival of two friends from the States for an extended visit (I am simultaneously a kid in a candy shop, over the moon excited to see the friends that I haven’t seen in so many months and already exhausted by preparations), I have been […]

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Robert Conquest, RIP

 

The historian Robert Conquest died at 98 this past July. Earlier this week, the Hoover Institution held a day-long conference in Bob’s honor — and aired this brief video tribute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxgbGmuiAxU
Recollections of a genuinely great man.

Contributor Post Created with Sketch. In a Jungle Full of Totalitarian Monsters, Liberal Democracy Needs Teeth

 

ConquestPeter was fortunate enough to have known Robert Conquest well — well enough to have called him “Bob;” well enough to be able casually to say, “It was indeed Kingsley [Amis] who recommended “I Told You So” as the new title for the re-issue of The Great Terror. How do I know? Bob told me.”

I was not so lucky. I did not know him. But rarely have I felt such a sense of melancholy at the news of the death of a public figure.

Conquest was The Spectator’s literary editor between 1962 and 1963. In his memory, they have reprinted his May 4, 1961 response to a letter published in the Times about the Bay of Pigs Invasion: