Themes: Each book review must have between 1-3 themes from each book. Students are encouraged to formulate ideas for themes from reading through the book index and table of contents page. For general...

Book Review- A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918
Author’s Background
The author of this book is Dr. Joseph Loconte who is a native of Brooklyn, New York. He is an Associate Professor of History at The King’s College in New York City. He teaches courses on Western Civilization, American Foreign Policy, and International Human Rights at the college. He is also the author of several other books besides this one, like- God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West, The Searchers: A Quest for Faith in the Valley of Doubt etc. Earlier on, Dr. Loconte served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. There he was involved in teaching religion and public policy. He has also been a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre in Washington, D.C., and from 1999-2006 he held the first chair in religion and civil society as the William E. Simon Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Dr. Loconte’s commentary on religion and public life have been an authority and constantly appear in the some of the major leading media outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the National Interest, the Weekly Standard, and National Review. He is also a regular contributor to the London-based Standpoint and the Huffington Post. He has also served as a commentator for National Public Radio’s ‘All Things Considered’.
The author is a legitimate authority on the subject of war, literature and history and hence his commentary on the topic is viable and solid. Since the book covers both the historical as well as religious inclinations of two classical authors, Tolkien and Lewis, Dr. Loconte is qualified to comment on the topic with enough background and historical knowledge in this regard. Other books that he has published are also in related fields. So the author can be considered an authentic and reliable voice regarding the topic of War, History and Literature (Joseph Loconte).
Theme Exploration
1) Culture and War
In this book, Dr. Loconte goes through the culture of the people at the time of the First World War. He does this in order to explore the mentality of the two authors and that of many youth like them when the war broke out.
The backdrop of culture that Dr. Loconte initially started with was that earlier on people thought that advancement of technology would make wars easy to win and result in the least amount of casualties. This mentality gradually developed into a mentality of ‘all wars coming to end’ as is reflected in the beginning of the book. Even with such perceptions of peace held by the people, World War I still broke out.
‘…Their confidence in human progress led many to believe that, with the help of modern technologies, wars could be fought and won with minimal cost in life and treasure… (Loconte, 2)’
The European culture at that time was that of rapid advancement in technology, change and industrialization. Human beings were creating and discovering something new every day. This gave the Europeans a sense of cultural accomplishment and gave them thoughts of power and capability.
On the other hand, the natural environment was quickly depleting. Dr. Loconte describes the hatred both Lewis and Tolkien harboured for industries and machines since they destroyed trees and were like a black blot on the greeneries of their land.
“Tolkien’s love of the English countryside, his attachment to nature, rebelled against the chaotic industrialization of his day… (Loconte, 6)”
At the same time scientific advancement started to change not only the world but also the thought of human beings. Both Tolkien and Lewis grew up in areas surrounded by nature and loved the natural habitat very much. They were moved because of the large and continuous destruction of nature necessary for the setup of industries.
“… Lewis became as dubious as Tolkien of the promises of industrialization to uplift the human condition, a scepticism that he would carry...