Perfect Sowing: Reflections of a Bookman - Hardcover

Regnery, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1882926323 ISBN 13: 9781882926329

Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000

Synopsis

Henry Regnery is principally known as the groundbreaking publisher of our age's most important conservative authors. But as this collection of his writings demonstrates, Regnery himself ranks among the most insightful conservative minds.

About this title

About the Author

Henry Regnery was born in 1912 in Hinsdale, Illinois. He received a B.S. degree in mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1934 and a M.A. in economics from Harvard University in 1938. Between 1934 and 1938 he studied at the University of Bonn in Germany. He was the founder, in 1947, of the Henry Regnery Company (currently Regnery Publishing, Inc.), which went on to gain high and enduring distinction in the world of American publishing. He is the author of Memoirs of a Dissident Publisher, The Cliff-Dwellers: The History of a Chicago Institution, Creative Chicago: From The Chap-Book to the University, and more recently, A Few Reasonable Words: Selected Writings. He died in 1996 at his home in Chicago. Jeffrey O. Nelson is vice president, publications at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the editor of both The Intercollegiate Review and The University Bookman.

From the Back Cover

"So the Right's indispensable publisher was also a mind-grabbing author! Perfect Sowing is a must-read."-Hugh Kenner, Franklin & Callaway Professor Emeritus of English, University of Georgia "Whether as publisher or author, Henry Regnery was the quintessential gentleman scholar who significantly helped shape American intellectual and political life of the last half-century. Here is the insider's story for the rebirth of the conservative movement and a fascinating glimpse into the world of publishing that launched it." -William B. Eerdmans., Jr., President, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company "Perfect Sowing gives us an accurate picture of the extraordinary man Henry Regnery was. While the New York Intellectuals dominated the American publishing scene Henry was quietly busy moving the center of cultural and political gravity west to Chicago. His cultural and political contribution to the reshaping of American life at the end of the 20th century has not yet been accurately estimated. It is an event of great importance to have these fugitive essays collected and handsomely published." -Stephen J. Tonsor, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Michigan "Perfect Sowing is a welcome reminder that Henry Regnery's immeasurable contribution to America's intellectual life went beyond publishing other great writers. His own writings reveal a mind of uncommon penetration, unswervingly devoted to truth. This book is richly rewarding."-Thomas Spence, Publisher, Spence Publishing Company "Henry Regnery was a great gentleman-humane and of sure literary taste. But what I appreciated most about our conversations-and from his writings-was his despairing realism, the trait of a commercial publisher who knew there would be no "money or glory" in halting the disintegration of our culture, but who tried nonetheless. Any book that celebrates Henry Regnery is a good thing, and Perfect Sowing is a very good thing indeed." -H. W. Crocker III, Author of Robert E. Lee on Leadership: Executive Lessons on Character, Courage, and Vision

Reviews

Drawn largely from his own journal, Modern Age, these essays by conservative Chicago publisher Regnery, who died in 1996, concentrate mainly on favorite authors from the political right, like Russell Kirk, Wyndham Lewis, Roy Campbell, Whittaker Chambers and Freda Utley. But he devotes not only an essay but many scattershot references in other pieces as well to FDR, whom Regnery considered the scourge of the centuryAnot only the author of the 1930s economic morass and the man who opened Washington to the Communist underground, but also a foolish intervener into wars with Germany and Japan, and the inventor of the unconditional surrender doctrine that forestalled a negotiated peace. In one essay, Regnery celebrates the Chicago visionary architect of the skyscraper, Louis Sullivan, while in another he deplores the waste of genius in the career of University of Chicago president Robert Hutchins. In the end, Regnery's main enemy is nothing less than liberalism itself, and this book will therefore find few nonpartisan readers. The liberal, Regnery writes, "does not accept man as God made him, the human condition as it is, nor society as it has come down to us." So consistent was Regnery in his views that this collection could serve as a handbook for conservative speechwriters. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Regnery (1912^-96) was the independent publisher behind the post^-World War II revival of conservatism. He came to publishing rather accidentally, as he recounts in one of these articles, speeches, and reviews concerned with culture, not politics. Oddly, the two autobiographical essays that begin the book are less interesting than the others, which are equally personal but about books, writers, and publishing. Regnery's assessments of persons he knew--English novelist and painter Wyndham Lewis, South African poet Roy Campbell, German journalist-editor Paul Scheffer, historian of ideas Russell Kirk, author and recanting Communist Whittaker Chambers--are affectionate as well as acute, some of the best reading here (intriguingly, Campbell, as Regnery portrays him, seems to have been the real he-man Hemingway). Virtually as good are the three pieces on publishing, especially since they directly follow "Peddling the Goods," Regnery's trenchant perspective on the Book-of-the-Month Club. Everything in the collection is well written, and nearly everything is flavorful, as appreciable for its literacy and craft as for its information. Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1882926323
• ISBN 13: 9781882926329
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 394
• Editor: Nelson Jeffrey O