A New Age for Daniel McCarthy’s Modern Age
State of the Union: Amidst the media deluge, what will Modern Age—the revamped project of a rising star writer—bring to the table?

On Monday, March 4, Modern Age, a journal of conservative thought founded by Russell Kirk, launched its brand new website.
Modern Age is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is edited, both in print and online, by Daniel McCarthy, a former editor-in-chief of The American Conservative.
McCarthy spoke to TAC about why Modern Age has chosen this specific point—a very busy election year—to, in a way, relaunch the decades-old periodical.
“This moment is, you know, the optimal time—precisely because it’s probably the moment of greatest debate and confusion, but also contention, with regard to what conservatism itself is, and what place conservatism has in America,” McCarthy said.
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He continued, discussing the current fractured nature of today’s conservative movement: “There have been very few forums that have brought together these different fragments into a wider conversation and into a whole. And that’s one of the things that Modern Age aims to do—not as just a forum, but as a place that will sort of guide the conversation and raise it to new levels.”
Despite the fresher, sleeker look of the website, McCarthy aims to remain rooted in the “original mission” of the journal set by Kirk so many years ago. He said, “I think the website that we have done now kind of fulfills that original mission. It uses a 21st century medium, in terms of being an internet website, but it still has very much the public spirit that characterized Russell Kirk’s own works and his vision for Modern Age.”
Additionally, the website was intended to make the ideas found in the print editions of Modern Age more accessible and regular. McCarthy is confident that this new website will be successful in this way: “I think that the integration of history, and the sort of depth that you get from a print magazine combined with the immediacy you get on a website…. I really see putting all those things together as being the most exciting thing that can be done with a publication like this.”