The War for Middle-earth : J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933-1945

In the years leading up to the Second World War, authors J.R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis--who both fought in the trenches of WWI--saw the world descending once again into a human catastrophe.This book tells the story of how the crucible of war brought them together in friendship and inspired them to engage their Christian imagination to confront the darkest forces of their age. In this powerful follow-up to the New York Times bestselling A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War, historian Joseph Loconte tells for the first time how the dark shadows cast by the Second World War utterly transformed the lives and literary imagination of Tolkien and Lewis. The mood of cynicism and disillusionment after the First World War unleashed a storm of destructive ideologies: eugenics, scientism, modernism, communism, Nazism, and totalitarianism.The political and cultural crises created a new sense of urgency.The future of Western civilization stood on the edge of a knife.Tolkien and Lewis jumped into