Chronicles (magazine)

Chronicles is a U.S. monthly magazine published by the Charlemagne Institute and associated with paleoconservative movement.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Its full current name is Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. It was founded in 1977 by the Rockford Institute, which later merged into a successor organization, the Charlemagne Institute. Paul Gottfried has been the editor-in-chief since 2021.<ref>Editorial Team – Chronicles, https://chroniclesmagazine.org/editorial-team/</ref>

History

In the first years since inception in 1977, the magazine was an anticommunist bi-monthly called Chronicles of Culture, edited by Leopold Tyrmand (1920–85), pen name of Jan Andrzej Stanislaw Kowalski, a Polish novelist and co-founder of the Rockford Institute who had previously written for The New Yorker.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In its first decade, the magazine grew to some 5,000 subscribers, according to E. Christian Kopff.<ref name="Wayback machine link">"A brief history of Chronicles" by E. Christian Kopff, First Principles Journal (Wayback machine link)</ref> The magazine became a monthly publication in 1982. In 1984, Thomas Fleming joined as managing editor.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite web</ref>

The magazine’s political influence reached its zenith in 1992 when prominent conservative journalist and politician Patrick J. Buchanan ran for president. His failed candidacies in 1996 and 2000 paralleled Chronicles’ drop in subscribers in the 1990s from nearly 15,000 to about 6,000.Template:Citation needed

In the 2000s, the magazine ran into severe financial difficulties. According to its own account, it received a large donation of “several million dollars” by Hannelore Schwindt, a native German who had married a Texan, in her will in 2008.<ref name=":0">By its own account in the Aaron Wolf obituary: "Scott Richert related a story that began with Aaron receiving in late 2006 an article submission from Egon Tausch entitled Gott Mit Uns. It described the history and subculture of German immigrants in Texas. ... The article appeared in the August 2007 edition. A few weeks later, Hannelore Schwindt, a native German who had married a Texas German, sent a small donation to Chronicles. When she died a year and a half later, her will left the magazine several million dollars."Template:Cite web</ref> The executive editor at the time was Aaron D. Wolf, who died in 2019.<ref name=":0" />

Srđa Trifković is a longstanding editor for foreign affairs.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2021, Gottfried was appointed as Interim-Editor and he has stayed in this position until today.Template:Citation needed

Publication

Originally published bimonthly,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> it was reduced to a monthly publication in 1982.<ref name=":3" />

List of editors

• Leopold Tyrmand 1977–1985<ref name=b>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Wayback machine link"/>
• Thomas Fleming 1985–2021Template:Cn
• Paul Gottfried (acting) since 2021

Contributors

Contributors to Chronicles have included Paul Gottfried, Taki Theodoracopulos, Srđa Trifković, Robert Weissberg, and Catharine Savage Brosman, among others.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Impact and Recognition

Beyond politics, Chronicles also gained recognition in the national press as a forum for cultural and intellectual debate. In 1987, columnist Anthony Harrigan referred to it as "the brilliant scholarly journal published by the highly respected Rockford Institute of Illinois."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Reception and Criticism

According to Edward H. Sebesta Fleming, who had been a co-founder of Southern Partisan magazine, brought neo-Confederate views to Chronicles.<ref name=":02">Template:Cite book</ref> By 1989 the subscription list had grown to nearly 15,000. Fleming published right-wing authors like Sam Francis, Clyde N. Wilson, Paul Gottfried, and Chilton Williamson Jr. As the Soviet Union broke up at the end of the Cold War and nationalism rose there and in Eastern Europe, some articles in Chronicles argued that the United States too would need to disintegrate by ethnicity.<ref name=":02" /> Political scientist Joseph Lowndes has written that Chronicles "churned out regular anti-immigrant pieces, attacking Latin American and Southeast Asian immigration on the basis of race, culture, national identity and populist defense of the white working class".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Joseph Scotchie, who has written for Chronicles, described it in 1999 as emphasizing anti-intervention in foreign policy, anti-globalism, and aversion to mass immigration.<ref>PaleoConservatives: New Voices of the Old Right, by Joseph Scotchie, 1999, pgs. 1 - 75.</ref> In 2000, James Warren of The Chicago Tribune called Chronicles "right-leaning" and wrote, "There are few publications more cerebral". He described a Chronicles article criticizing the finances of Donald Trump, who was then considering a Reform Party presidential campaign.<ref>James Warren. "Chronicles Trumps Donald's Aspirations", The Chicago Tribune, 25 February 2000. Retrieved 8 September 2019.</ref> Historians in the 2000s described writers associated with Chronicles as "Neo-Agrarian conservatives"<ref name=":1" /> revering Southern beliefs.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Chronicles has had close ties to the neo-Confederate movement.<ref name=":02" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref> The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described Chronicles in 2017 as "a publication with strong neo-Confederate ties that caters to the more intellectual wing of the white nationalist movement",<ref name=":2" /> and in another article said it was "controversial even among conservatives for its racism and anti-Semitism".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

References

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External links

• Template:Official website