John P. Rossi is professor emeritus of history at La Salle University in Philadelphia.
Posts by John P. Rossi
February 05, 2026
What we call Western civilization is in a precarious state today, challenged by the loss of religious values, a threat from aroused Islamic radicalism, romantic notions of “collectivism,” and a dangerous decline in the value of freedom of speech and thought.
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November 05, 2025
The beginning of the recovery of Catholic influence in Great Britain can be dated to the conversion in 1845 of John Henry Newman, then at the peak of his influence in the Oxford Movement.
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August 15, 2025
On August 17, 1945—just two days after V-J Day in Asia and fewer than two weeks after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—George Orwell published what he modestly called his “little squib”:
Animal Farm.
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May 13, 2025
There have been pivotal battles that, had they gone another way, would have changed the direction of Western history: John Sobieski’s victory over the Ottoman Empire at the gates of Vienna, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Washington’s stand at Valley Forge, Wellington’s triumph at Waterloo, but none was as critical for the fate of Western civilization as the events that transpired over the summer and early fall of 1940.
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May 30, 2024
This year marks the 95th anniversary of the book that for many solidified the view that World War I dealt a deadly a blow to European culture: Robert Graves’
Goodbye to All That.
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April 03, 2024
My library, a relatively small one by university standards, has over 150 books dealing with Winston Churchill, one of the Big Four of World War II, which included FDR, Stalin, and Hitler.
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October 17, 2023
The collocation in the title captures the thoroughgoing exploration of the topic in a phrase:
George Orwell and Russia. Masha Karp is not the first to ponder George Orwell’s relationship to Stalinist Russia—and the relationship of both Stalinist and post-communist Russia to Orwell—but she is the first to frame a comprehensive, well-researched study around them.
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