Defending Middle-earth

Description

Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity is a study by Patrick Curry, a Canadian-born scholar who has taught at several British universities. It was first published by Floris Books in 1997, and reissued with a new afterword by Houghton Mifflin in 2004.

Curry defends Tolkien's fantasy against critics who saw it as escapist and reactionary. He argues that The Lord of the Rings carries a worldview that speaks to modern concerns: respect for nature and the land, local community, and a sense of wonder and the sacred against the power of the state and of industry. It was one of the first major studies to look at these ecological and spiritual sides of the book.