Defending Middle-Earth

What are millions of readers all over the world getting out of reading The Lord of the Rings? Newly reissued with a new afterword Patrick Curry''s Defending Middle-earth argues in part that Tolkien has found a way to provide something close to spirit in a secular age. His focus is on three main aspects of Tolkien''s fiction: the social and political structure of Middle-earth and how the varying cultures within it find common cause in the face of a shared threat; the nature and ecology of Middle-earth and how what we think of as the natural world joins the battle against mindless mechanized destruction; and the spirituality and ethics of Middle-earth for which Curry provides a particularly insightful and resonant examination that will deepen the understanding of the millions of fans who have taken The Lord of the Rings to heart.