Roger Ekirch

On his book The True Story that Inspired Kidnapped

Cover Interview of January 24, 2010

Editor’s note

Originally, this interview ran on the Rorotoko cover page under the headline

“The real-life saga of James Annesley.”

We highlighted two quotes.

On the first page:

“My aim has been to use this small mountain of evidence to relate the fascinating story of Annesely’s life with as much attention to accuracy and historical detail as possible.”

On the second:

“A secondary goal has been to illuminate the contours of Irish society. The sheer density of the legal depositions, many containing richly detailed recollections of both rural and urban settings, is stunning.”

history / biography / literature / justice / social mobility / 18th century / narrative / family / ireland / annesley james /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009