Armageddon is a contemporary epic poem about the major event of our own time. Written in blank verse, it narrates the defining event for civilisation today: the American President Bush's struggle against the Islamic extremism of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, in the course of which Bush transforms himself, the US and the world. It follows the War on Terror from September 11, 2001 through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which some believe were illegally waged for reasons of oil. Covertly supported by Iran, bin Laden is shown as possessing at least 20 nuclear suitcase bombs (a purchase confirmed by Hans Blix of the IAEA in 2004), some of which he plans to explode simultaneously in 10 American cities - hence the title. The poem presents all sides of the War on Terror and makes sense of the first decade of the 21st century. Armageddon is Nicholas Hagger's second poetic epic. It is the successor to his Overlord, which was the first major poetic epic in the English language since Milton's Paradise Lost. Overlord was about the Second World War from D-Day to the dropping of the atomic bomb and also followed an American hero, Eisenhower. Like Overlord, Armageddon is also in the tradition of Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid, and its epic sweep includes higher and lower worlds in the Universalist manner. Both qualify as American epics, though written by an English poet. The only other poet to have written two major poetic epics is Homer.

In "The New Philosophy of Universalism", Nicholas Hagger presents a new philosophy focusing on an up-to-date view of the universe and its bio-friendly, orderly rather than random, structure. At the origin of Western civilization, philosophy reflected the One universe and man's position in it. The last 350 years of increasing materialism and reductionism have fragmented the universe. In the 20th century philosophy preferred to focus on logic and language and has become increasingly irrelevant. Now a new philosophy, Universalism, takes philosophy back to its original aim: focus on the universe - the universe known to contemporary cosmologists, astrophysicists, physicists, biologists and geologists, who identify systems of order as well as randomness.Reflecting the most up-to-date scientific evidence for what the universe is, "Universalism" focuses on cosmological bio-friendliness and the universal principle of order, and reconnects philosophy to the metaphysical tradition rejected by the Vienna Circle. A systematic philosophy of the expanding universe, Nature and man, "Universalism" identifies a Law of Order that counterbalances a Law of Randomness and offers a new philosophy that has global applications.

This is the first book on Iran to combine travelogue with in-depth historical reflection/getting to the heart of the Iranian Islamic mind. This is a reflective look at the cultural heritage and present nuclear crisis in Iran. Iran's cultural and spiritual heritage is now threatened by policies that may trigger international intervention. A source of Western civilization, it may be destroyed by its main beneficiary, Western civilization.This travelogue is a tour of Iran and explores the rich history of this pivotal country: the Achaemenians (Cyrus/Darius/Xerxes), the Sasanians, the Zoroastrian religion of 2,500 years ago; the Islamic period, the Safavids, and the Revolution which dethroned the Shah and made Iran an Islamic Republic. The Islamic idea is caught by observations of the well of the Hidden Imam and of its expression through the architecture, tiles and calligraphy of historical mosques. The Revolution is brought to life by visits to Ayatollah Khomeini's living rooms in Qom and Tehran, and to the Shah's White Palace. And the confrontational policy of contemporary Iran that threatens to engulf Iran's cultural heritage in the same way that Saddam's policy wreaked havoc on Iraq's cultural legacy is caught in a drive past the nuclear site at Natanz, which has many anti-aircraft guns round it.

Nicholas Hagger's Collected Poems contained 30 volumes of his poems that reflect his quest for the One. Life Cycle and Other New Poems contains volumes 31-34 and presents the vision of unity to which his quest has led. 'Life Cycle' is a reflection on the path and pattern in our lives, and on twelve seven-year ages from infancy to advanced old age. 'In Harmony with the Universe' presents poems on the soul's harmony and oneness with Nature. 'An Unsung Laureate' focuses on public events and the conflicts within Western society. 'Adventures in Paradise' recounts journeys to remote places that have echoes of Paradise, including the Galapagos Islands and Antarctica - and reflections on evolution and global warming. Hagger derives his inspiration from the 17th-century Metaphysical poets and seeks to unite the later Augustan and Romantic traditions. These poems reconcile the soul's harmony with the universe and the conflicts in public life, and are within the poetic tradition of Wordsworth and Tennyson. They add significantly to Collected Poems, Classical Odes and Hagger's two poetic epics, Overlord and Armageddon, also published by O-Books (the manuscripts and papers for which are held in the Albert Sloman Library at the University of Essex). They carry forward his Universalist approach to poetry which unveils an ordered universe behind the apparent chaos of world events.

Nicholas Hagger's Collected Stories covered five volumes containing 1,001 very short stories detailing five decades (from the 1960s to the 2000s) in the life of Philip Rawley, whose demise was misleadingly announced at the end of the fifth volume. This sixth volume contains 201 stories and deals with the chill of winter, impending old age. These mini-stores present a wide range of characters, and their follies and flaws. They offer a complete literary experience in a page or two, and their combination of opposites derives its inspiration from the 17th century: Dr Johnson's description in his 'Life of Cowley' of the wit of the Metaphysical poets as "a combination of dissimilar images" in which "the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together". They are verbal paintings that present an image in action and reveal a poet's eye for significant detail. Hagger's stories are innovatory in their brevity. They are imagistic, economical and vivid, and cumulatively reflect the Age. They are ideal for short concentration spans: reading on journeys or in bed. Individual stories drop into the consciousness like a stone into a well, leaving the mind to reflect on the ripples. These imaginative stories in clean prose make excellent reading and contain memorable images and studies of character.

These stories serve as an introduction to Nicholas Hagger's five volumes totalling 1,001 stories (an echo of The Thousand and One Nights, or Arabian Nights). They are grouped in two parts which reflect the two aspects of the fundamental theme of world literature outlined in his A New Philosophy of Literature: 'Follies and Vices' and 'Quest for the One'. These stories condemn follies and vices in relation to an implied virtue - more than 150 vices are listed in a Preface - and present moments of heightened consciousness in which the universe is perceived as a unity.

Nicholas Hagger's literary, philosophical, historical and political writings are innovatory. He has set out a new approach to literature that combines Romantic and Classical outlooks in a substantial literary oeuvre of 2,000 poems including over 300 classical odes, two poetic epics, five verse plays, three masques, two travelogues and 1,200 stories. He has created a new philosophy of Universalism that focuses on the unity of the universe and humankind and the interconnectedness of all disciplines, and challenges modern philosophy. He has presented an original historical view of the rise and fall of civilisations, and proposed - and detailed - a limited democratic World State with the power to abolish war and solve all the world's problems. Selected Letters draws together those of his letters (written over 60 years) that aid the interpretation and elucidation of his works. Many of his correspondents are well-known figures within literature, philosophy, history and international politics, and Hagger is in the footsteps of Alexander Pope in editing his own letters, which are in the tradition of Pope, Wordsworth, Keats, T.E. Lawrence, Ezra Pound and Ted Hughes (one of his correspondents). They throw light on all aspects of Hagger's vast output, and are required reading for all interested in following the growth of his Universalism, his literary development and his innovatory approach to universal truth. NICHOLAS HAGGER is a poet, man of letters, cultural historian and philosopher. He has lectured at universities in Iraq, Libya and Japan, where he was a Professor of English Literature. He has written 54 books. These include an immense literary offering, most recently King Charles the Wise and Visions of England (both also published by O-Books), and innovatory works within history, philosophy and international politics and statecraft. His archive of papers and manuscripts is held as a Special Collection in the Albert Sloman Library at the University of Essex. In 2016 he was awarded the Gusi Peace Prize for Literature, and in 2019 the BRICS silver medal for 'Vision for Future'.

In The New Philosophy of Universalism Nicholas Hagger outlined a new philosophy that restates the order within the universe, the oneness of humankind and an infinite Reality perceived as Light; and its applications in many disciplines, including literature. In this work of literary Universalism which carries forward the thinking in T.S. Eliot's 'Tradition and the Individual Talent' and other essays, Hagger traces the fundamental theme of world literature, which has alternating metaphysical and secular aspects: a quest for Reality and immortality; and condemnation of social vices in relation to an implied virtue. Since classical times these two antithetical traditions have periodically been synthesised by Universalists. Hagger sets out the world Universalist literary tradition: the writers who from ancient times have based their work on the fundamental Universalist theme. These can be found in the Graeco-Roman world, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, in the Baroque Age, in the Neoclassical, Romantic Victorian and Modernist periods, and in the modern time. He demonstrates that the Universalist sensibility is a synthesis of the metaphysical and secular traditions, and a combination of the Romantic inspired imagination (the inner faculty by which Romantic poets approached the Light) and the Neoclassical imitative approach to literature which emphasizes social order and proportion, a combination found in the Baroque time of the Metaphysical poets, and in Victorian and Modernist literature. Universalists express their cross-disciplinary sensibility in literary epic, as did Homer, Virgil, Dante and Milton, and in a number of genres within literature - and in history and philosophy. Universalist historians claim that every civilisation is nourished by a metaphysical vision that is expressed in its art, and when it declines secular, materialist writings lose contact with its central vision. As Universalist literary works restate the order within the universe, reveal metaphysical Being and restore the vision of Reality, Hagger excitingly argues that the Universalist sensibility renews Western civilisation's health. Literary Universalism is a movement that revives the metaphysical outlook and combines it with the secular, materialistic approach to literature that has predominated in recent times. It can carry out a revolution in thought and culture and offer a new direction in contemporary literature. This work conveys Universalism's impact on literature, and should be read by all who have concerns about the sickness and decline of contemporary European/Western culture.

In King Charles the Wise, Nicholas Hagger celebrated Prince Charles's humanitarian vision and foresaw the birth of a united world. In The Coronation of King Charles he celebrates the coming Carolingian Age. The hope is that all the divisions within the UK and problems of humankind will be resolved under a new democratic World State working to abolish war, enforce disarmament, combat famine, disease and poverty, and solve the world's environmental and ecological problems of climate change and global warming; and that King Charles, Head of a Commonwealth of 53 nation-states, will work to bring his humanitarian vision to all the world's nations. Following the tradition of Ben Jonson's 17th-century court masques in verse and of his own masques The Dream of Europa and King Charles the Wise, which incorporate the blend of mythology and history and five sections (prologue, antimasque, masque, revels and epilogue) found in all masques. Hagger sets the third masque in his trilogy in London's Banqueting House, where masques were performed before James I. This coronation masque contains three pageant entertainments that are viewed by King Charles before his coronation and contrast the disorder and political chaos before his reign with the order and harmony of his new Carolingian Age. His philosopher-King's concern to benefit the lot of all humankind is applauded by the Universalist God of the One who assumes protean forms - the gods of all faiths including Biblical Israel's Yahweh and Olympian Zeus - and cares for all creation, and watches over him. King Charles, co-author of Harmony, is shown as presiding over what promises to be an Age of Universal Harmony.

In World State Nicholas Hagger followed Truman, Einstein, Churchill, Eisenhower and others in calling for a democratic, partly-federal World State with sufficient authority to abolish war, enforce disarmament, combat famine, disease and poverty, and solve the world’s ?nancial and environmental problems. Its lower house, a World Parliamentary Assembly, would initially be based in the UN General Assembly and eventually replace the UN. In this companion volume he sets out a Constitution for a United Federation of the World (UF). In 14 chapters and 145 Articles he details the UF’s structure and institutions at inter-national and supranational levels, and the rights and freedoms world citizens would be guaranteed. He lists the 26 precedents and 204 existing constitutions he consulted (including the UN Charter and the US and EU constitutional documents) and the sources on which the Articles are based. This comprehensive and authoritative Constitution sets out with great clarity and concision how the whole world can be governed, and can be laid before the UN General Assembly. As a blueprint for a World State that can bring universal peace and prosperity it may come to be regarded as one of the most remarkable feats of statecraft of our time.

In The Fall of the West Nicholas Hagger examined the evidence for the origin of Covid and whether it has been used as a bio-weapon between West and East. He saw the US, worried by China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative in 140 countries, as collaborating with the Western Syndicate’s New World Order based on the Great Reset advocated by Schwab’s World Economic Forum and the UN’s Agenda 2030. He saw an authoritarian New World Order that could accommodate Russia and China as being established before a democratic World State. In The Golden Phoenix (which completes a quartet that includes The Syndicate, The Secret History of the West and The Fall of the West and is also a sequel to Peace for our Time), Hagger carries the story forward from Ukraine’s being a corridor between the Black Sea and Europe for Russian natural gas to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2019 Hagger was invited to Russia to give a lecture in Moscow on a supranational World State to an audience which included men in military uniform, and he received several awards, including the Russian Ecological Foundation’s Golden Phoenix lapel badge. He was asked to write two letters to Putin and was in contact with Putin’s advisers. The phoenix rises from ashes, and Hagger considers whether the West is rising from the ashes of its withdrawal from Afghanistan to advance its technocratic New World Order by supplying arms to Ukraine and blocking Russian gas; or whether a Russian authoritarian New World Order is rising from the ashes of the defunct Soviet Union to dominate southern Ukraine, and eventually some former Soviet territories, in alliance with China’s Belt-and-Road New World Order in 140 countries; or whether the supranational democratic global New World Order he outlined in World State and World Constitution is rising from the ashes of the Second World War like a golden phoenix. The Russian Foreign Minister has said that NATO is in effect in a war with Russia, and that there is a real danger of a Third World War, and Hagger assesses the likely outcome of the current conflict.

"The Rise and Fall of Civilizations" is a sequel to "The Light of Civilization", the most monumental study of the history of civilizations for several generations, where Nicholas Hagger describes religion as the basis for civilization rather than one element in its cultural expression. Saints, mystics, gurus, prophets, religious founders - it is these that drive history rather than kings and politicians. Here, he outlines the patterns of the civilizations themselves, providing a unique interpretation of the dynamics of their origin, rise and collapse, and how one civilization leads into the next. Essential reading for students of history, it will interest all seeking to understand historical patterns and where our civilization is headed today.