Russell Kirk was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, in 1920, and received most of his education at the University of Virginia. He received a B.A. in English with honors in 1942 and an M.A. in English in 1943
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He served as sergeant-major of the University Rifles, a military cadet unit, from 1942 to 1945. After the war he married Margaret Kirk and began teaching at the University of Virginia where he was promoted to full professor in 1953. He has published fifteen books of fiction and nonfiction, including The Conservative Mind (1953), The Roots of American Order (1960), The Two Faces of January (1965), The Liberal Mind (1967), The American Cause (1976); Lords of Discipline (1979), The Last Puritan: Essays on Liberty and Culture (1985), Society's Breakthrough! (1991), Where Faith Begins: A Christian Natural Law for Politics (1999); and What Are You Willing To Lose? (2006).
Kirk is past president of the Association for the Study of Religion and Society; former president of the James Branch Cabell Society, Greenville, South Carolina; member of the board of editors for First Things magazine; a member of the board of governors for the New Criterion magazine; a member of the advisory council for National Review magazine; a trustee emeritus for Princeton University; an honorary fellow for Wolfson College, Oxford University; a foreign member of Italy's Accademia dei Lincei; an honorary citizen of Venice, Italy; honorary citizen of Padua, Italy.