I think this one quote from http://www.lord-of-the-rings.org sums it up really well.. and in just a short sentence:

"The Lord of the Rings, written in the worst years of the twentieth century, is indeed not so much an allegory as a wish-fulfilling dream of what a conflict of good and evil would have looked like in a better, simpler world."

Which of course just supports Iron's Rite's previous statements.