To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade history, the Libertarian Futurist Society since 2019 has been publishing a series of Appreciations of all past award winners that make clear why they were recognized.
Here is an Appreciation for J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the 2009 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction:
“Power tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – Lord Acton (1834-1902)
“One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all,
and in the darkness bind them.”
– The Ring inscription in The Lord of the Rings
By Michael Grossberg and William H. Stoddard
The Lord of the Rings is not only one of the great works of fantasy but also a powerful libertarian cautionary fable about the inevitable temptations of power.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1954-1955 three-part novel (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King) charts a social, political, personal and partly supernatural struggle between freedom and absolute tyranny.