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Nicholas Hagger Press Releases |
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1. Press release by O Books on recent literary works Nicholas Hagger , poet and dramatist, man of letters, cultural historian* and philosopher, is bringing out a lifetime’s creative work in 5 substantial volumes, representing one of the finest bodies of literary achievement of the last generation. Much of it has not been published before. The programme begins with 3 volumes, publishing in October, which set a new direction for English poetry – poems of vast historical sweep and depth that connect with, and seek to restore, the West’s cultural tradition and civilisation.Collected Poems, 1958-2005 Since the Second World War English poetry has become almost exclusively social and secular. It has lost contact with poetry’s true task – ancient, traditional and perennial – of mirroring the contemplative, metaphysical vision of Reality or God. Here is a new, distinctive and original metaphysical voice, some of it published for the first time. Nicholas Hagger descends through the Dark Night to his centre, experiences illumination and ascends to a unitive vision of the One that so attracted poets like Dante and Eliot, Blake and Yeats. While doing so, he reflects the Age, focusing prophetically on the end of Communism, the decline of Europe, the heart of America and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. A hitherto unpublished 35 page appendix is entitled “Vision and Technique in the Collected Poems.” Grounded both in the present day, and in history and philosophy, Collected Poems is a signpost to the life of the future, and essential reading for both poets and anyone with soul.ISBN 1905047940 – 864 pages – 230/153mm (6x9 inches) – paperback – £29.95/$59.95 Classical Odes In Classical Odes, published for the first time, Nicholas Hagger achieves a blend of poetry and history, of the traditions of Herodotus and Pausanias (both of whom visited classical sites) and of Virgil and Horace (who wrote of everyday life in the countryside).In the first four-book Odes since Horace, he addresses the concerns regarding Western civilisation of Pound, Eliot and Yeats – particularly, the concern Eliot had about the impact of Europe on the man of letters-and finds a new way of carrying them forward. He catches the mood of our time: dismay at the end of the Great Britain of Churchill and Montgomery, elegiac feeling that Englishness is being superseded by Europeanness and globalism, and Britain’s hesitant fumblings for a new identity in a time of transition. Never before has Western’s civilization’s cultural legacy been captured in verse that has such contemporary relevance. ISBN 1905047460 – 800 pages – 230/153mm (6x9 inches) – paperback – £29.95/$59.95 Overlord: The Triumph of Light Overlord is the first major poetic epic in the English language since Milton’s Paradise Lost. Presented here in one volume for the first time, written in blank verse, with a panoramic visionary sweep that embraces higher and lower worlds within a universalist scheme, it is a contemporary epic poem (as much American as English) in the tradition of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. Drawing, as they do, on a single defining event for civilisation, it focuses on World War II and General Eisenhower’s pursuit of Hitler and the fall of Berlin (our Troy); the battles and the suffering, and the hidden conflicts between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, Eisenhower and Montgomery, and Hitler and his generals. All are handled with a Homeric mastery that moves easily between formal diplomacy and bitter antagonism. Eisenhower’s visions of Hell and Heaven evoke Dante’s Divine Comedy. A hitherto unpublished 14 page appendix is entitled “The 25-Year Gestation and Birth of Overlord.”In dealing with these powerful forces, still operating in our own time, Overlord makes sense of the 20th century and gives a new understanding of the present – in particular of the alternative New World Orders that face us.ISBN 1905047843 – 976 pages – 230/153mm (6x9 inches) – paperback – £29.95/$59.95 Following in January 2007. Collected Verse Plays Three and a half centuries after the form declined c.1640, Nicholas Hagger revives verse drama with The Warlords, a panoramic two-part drama which focuses on the fortunes of General Montgomery after D-Day, and his conflict with Eisenhower. Like Tolstoy before him, Hagger is concerned to understand the role of war in the metaphysical cosmos, exploring the universal theme of the relationship between power and good in contemporary history.The second drama, The Tragedy of Prince Tudor, tells the story of the Prince’s heroic attempt to preserve the culture and identity of his disintegrating kingdom. He dramatizes what is set to become the burning issue of the 21st century-Britain’s fight to preserve her national sovereignty.Two plays are published here for the first time. Ovid Banished raises the question of why Augustus banished Ovid to the Black Sea town of Tomis in AD 8, and dramatizes the Roman poet’s spiritual metamorphosis. The imperialist state is shown to work against the sovereign poet, while the deification of the Emperor is presented as the ultimate symbol of secular humanism. Ovid, as prophet and poet, sees that, despite its material success, Rome is in spiritual decline and must ultimately give way to the hordes of barbarians within its borders.The Rise of Oliver Cromwell is an innovative play which explores the reasons for Cromwell’s extraordinary rise to dictatorship. With uncanny resonances for modern audiences, it sheds light on the ancient spiritual conflicts that drive contemporary politics.ISBN 1846940265 – 716 pages – 230/153mm (6x9 inches) – paperback – £29.95/$59.95 Collected Stories: A Thousand and One Mini-Stories or Verbal Paintings Nicholas Hagger ’s collected five volumes of 1,001 very short stories (231 of which are published here for the first time) create a new genre: the miniature story, or verbal painting. Each story expresses an eternal truth through an image conveyed in a vivid title, and can provide the reader with a complete literary experience in a few minutes. They make ideal reading for the train, in bed, in a hospital or as a class-room text.Each volume covers a decade, starting with the 1960s and ending with the 2000s, while each story stands on its own but chimes to the theme of the Dance of Death, the development being from horror to acceptance. ISBN 1846940273 – 1154 pages – 230/153mm (6x9 inches) – paperback – £29.95/$59.95 Praise for Nicholas Hagger's work Combining imagination, spiritual vision, a penetrating understanding of history and a metaphysical eye that draws on the new science and philosophy, Nicholas Hagger has created an impressive body of work that will figure prominently in the European literary scene. He hits a pace, a tilt, that really carries the reader along… Everything comes as a subordinate clause to his dramatic momentum, a hand waving out of the express train window . Ted Hughes, Poet LaureateHis poetic felicities include a poetic mix of Eliot, Pound and Blake; the judicious invention of his own psychological terms to guide his progress; an unafraid nakedness, linked to philosophic and scientific adventurousness; genuine visionary leanings and occasional lyric beauty . Sebastian Barker, past chairman of The Poetry SocietyNicholas Hagger writes with a rare intellectual passion. Sir Laurens van der Post.Other Works by Nicholas Hagger *Like Robert Graves and T. S. Eliot, Nicholas Hagger is a man of letters who also writes cultural history and philosophy, and these interests permeate his literary work. His major work The Light of Civilization has just been published:At the source of civilisations can be found religions, and at the core of all religions and historical traditions is the experience of the Light, although it is interpreted differently in different religions. A former Professor of English Literature who has spent a number of years living in Asia and the Middle East, Hagger has excelled in The Light of Civilization with a unique stance that gives mystics, prophets, saints and shamans more credit than kings and politicians for driving history.Hagger discusses the origin of the Light and the meaning of its experience. He elaborates on the tradition of the Light from 25 sources including the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Israelite, Celtic, Iranian, Andean, African and Chinese, explaining also how the experience of the Light in these regions helped shape these cultures and civilisations. He then analyses a variety of subsets where "heretical" Light traditions have influenced Western civilisation, eg., the Essenes, the Templars, the Grail Knights, the Kabbalists, the Theosophists and the New Agers (whose origins and ascendancy he analyses). Finally, he discusses the philosophy of history and touches on the implications of this Light knowledge for the future of Western civilisation. Brilliant! NexusAnd over the last two years he has also brought out The Syndicate, on current affairs, and The Secret History of the West. The Rise and Fall of Civilizations is due 2007.Nicholas Hagger has entries in the International Who’s Who of Authors and Writers, International Who’s Who in Poetry, Dictionary of International Biography and the Cambridge Blue Book.
2. Press release by Watkins on The Secret Founding of America:The Real Story of Freemasons, Puritans and the Battle for the New WorldAs America’s 400th Anniversary approaches in May 2007, it’s about time we learnt the real history of our country’s birth… I t’s certainly no secret that the U.S. is the last surviving superpower today. But how did it happen, and was it an accident or all part of a master plan? Leading historian Nicholas Hagger, in his stunning new book, The Secret Founding of America, leads us down a path of little-known national history to how we arrived at the global position we occupy today. Retelling our beloved national stories, such as the founding of Jamestown and the arrival of the Mayflower with all the excitement, struggle, and betrayal that went with it, Hagger paints a picture of our founding as a struggle between religions, monarchies, and political ideas, but with a new twist. Perhaps the U.S. wasn’t founded exclusively on Christian ideals after all; perhaps a secret ideology lay underneath…Most Americans today would point to our origins as the Mayflower, the Pilgrims, and their Puritanical beliefs. But it’s not so; 13 years before the Mayflower there existed the little settlement of Jamestown, whose anniversary we are officially recognizing this May as the birth of the U.S. In The Secret Founding of America, Hagger argues that this settlement held more influence over the long-term future of America than the Pilgrims’ puritanical beliefs. Jamestown may have contained the first rumblings of Freemasonry in the New World, which Hagger goes on to show influenced each and every one of our Founding Fathers, from Franklin to Washington to Jefferson. Hagger delves deep into American history to find the true story of our founding. He shows the influence of freemasonry throughout American historical events and figures, such as:
Also, many Masonic and German Illuminati ideas infiltrated the structure of our government:
Hagger leaves readers with a sense that the rise of America was no haphazard event, but a strategically planned move by Freemasonic groups looking to eventually gain global power and unity. The Secret Founding of America urges us to think more deeply and clearly about the true origins of our country and to where these ideas and secret societies can lead the world. In this fascinating and comprehensive study of the rise of America, readers will be left wanting more and looking towards the future with a fresh and different perspective. About the Author Nicholas Hagger has written for the London Times and authored 28 books on history, literature, and philosophy, including a study of the founding, rise, and fall of civilizations. He has lectured at universities in Baghdad, Tokyo, and Tripoli. For seven years, he owned the house in Suffolk where the Jamestown settlement in thought to have been planned, and he was involved in the discovery of a skeleton that is thought to be one of the most influential founders of Jamestown, Bartholomew Gosnold. He has appeared frequently on television and radio and in newspapers, speaking on the founding of America.
The Secret Founding of America The Real Story of Freemasons, Puritans and The Battle for the New World
ISBN: 9781842931189 – 352 pages – 234mm x 153mm – Hardback – £16.99/$24.95 (Can $32.95) Page: 352 pages, Hardcover 234mm x 153mm Publication Date: April 2007
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