Here at the beginning of the May issue, I am pleased to introduce a new feature, In This Number, which will henceforth introduce each new issue of Chronicles.  And in this inaugural notice, I’m pleased to announce also that a merger has been effected between The Rockford Institute, the publisher of Chronicles for over 43 years, and The Charlemagne Institute, which operates the website Intellectual Takeout and The Alcuin Internship.  Charlemagne, whose name the new entity has assumed, will be the publisher of this magazine.

The process of integration between the two organizations is going smoothly under the guidance of Devin Foley, our new and energetic CEO who is eager to increase the readership of Chronicles and keep us on increasingly firm ground financially.  Even as we grow, the magazine will retain its historical character and editorial direction, while freshening its print design and its presence on the web in the year to come.

The Charlemagne Institute is well known for both Intellectual Takeout and The Alcuin Internship, run by our contributor of many years, John Elliott, whose daughter, Emma Elliott-Freire, is also a regular contributor to these pages.  Jeff Minick, another friend of Chronicles and among our frequent writers, has long been associated with both organizations.  Intellectual Takeout has more than 700,000 followers on Facebook, most of them Millennials, and has more than 9 million visitors to the website each year.  We are excited to introduce Chronicles to this audience.

Conveniently, The Charlemagne Institute has the same cultural interests as the former Rockford Institute, dedicated for 44 years to the preservation, promotion, and advancement of Western civilization generally, and its American branch, or aspect, in particular.

Chronicles’ core staff will remain intact, I continuing as editor, Aaron D. Wolf as executive editor, Cindy Link as circulation manager, and Kelsey Hintzman as editorial assistant.  I can assure you that in the years to come you will continue to enjoy and appreciate the magazine you know and love.  Meanwhile, I encourage you as a reader of Chronicles to explore the several programs developed over the years by The Charlemagne Institute and discover how closely they fit with the interests and concerns of this magazine and its editors.

John Howting makes his debut in these pages this month with “Protectionism as a Path to Piety,” which criticizes and satirizes the more extreme libertarian arguments for free trade and argues their basic impiety; while offering also a path to true piety through the recognition of duty to one’s own people, beginning with the family.  Also notable is Donald W. Livingston’s review of Boyd Cathey’s The Land We Love: The South and Its Heritage, a book that is itself an exercise in filial piety.  Finally, in this number, I am resurrecting my old column, The Hundredth Meridian, which ran for about 14 years, beginning in 1994, and had a popular following.  Its subject was—and is now—a description and evocation of rural life in the American West, and the similarities and differences between the Old West and the New Old West.  The first two-dozen or so columns (most of which have been collected in The Hundredth Meridian: Seasons and Travels in the New Old West, available from Chronicles Press) were originally written in serial form as chapters in a forthcoming book.  As I no longer have available the time I once enjoyed to travel extensively in the Rocky Mountain region, or to spend as much time as I used to in the field, the revived Hundredth Meridian will not be a regular feature.  Instead, it will appear as often as I get the chance to live the experiences I hope to write about.

        —Chilton Williamson, Jr., Editor