A year into the global pandemic, Gene Fendt repositions the attention of the Western world on a literary classic that bears a vital perspective. Presently, civilization cannot allow itself to think about being better. First it has to survive. Referencing Thomas Merton’s claim that Camus’ fictional account is actually a “modern myth about the destiny of man” and indication of the blight of “ambiguous and false explanations, interpretations, conventions, justifications, legalizations, evasions which infect our struggling civilization,” Fendt makes the case that “modernity itself is a time of plague.” 

Fendt asserts that perhaps “the originality of the modern plague is that most people admit of no symptoms.” This chilling likeness to the asymptomatic Covid-19 victim is but one of the images of what the plague stands for in both the novel and contemporary society. The existentialist fiction of Camus is unwrapped by Fendt’s fidelity to realism and Camus’ motivations as an artist. As Camus calls nihilistic art and culture “barbaric,” Fendt calls the barbarian a natural slave. If we are moved by the forces of powers that be without sense or knowledge of a proper end, we too have been rendered worse than ignorant. 

Beyond the presentation of The Plague as a myth, Fendt also provides generous insight into elements of this work that give an autobiographical portrait of Albert Camus´ artistic development. He provides an intelligent challenge to labeling Camus an atheist, if Camus is truly the artist Fendt believes him to be. It is also an unlikely but important contribution to the political philosophical study of solidarity.  

Richard Ferrier expounds on the basic truth learned from Alan Keyes during work on his political campaign in 1996. "He taught us to see what President Lincoln saw 160 years ago: an American should always take his principles and form his sentiments from those expressed in the Declaration of Independence." Whereas it might seem America is the product of political divorce, the Declaration instead endows our nation with the qualities of a marriage. We are a deliberate union, Ferrier says, and we must strive to live well politically by doing right by the pledge contained in the Declaration.

Here Ferrier transforms decades of teaching American history and its founding into a reflection on its most important document. Our troubled times call for a return to America's fundamental principles. This book shows their sources, their truth, and their lasting power. It is a labor of love, and of hope. 

Anyone seeking opportunity in the United States should read this book and be reminded of the privilege and obligation of the American way of life, all contained in the Declaration of Independence. 

The central contention of the “New Atheism” of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens is that there has for several centuries been a war between science and religion, that religion has been steadily losing that war, and that at this point in human history a completely secular scientific account of the world has been worked out in such thorough and convincing detail that there is no longer any reason why a rational and educated person should find the claims of any religion the least bit worthy of attention.

But as Edward Feser argues inThe Last Superstition, in fact there is not, and never has been, any war between science and religion at all. There has instead been a conflict between two entirely philosophical conceptions of the natural order: on the one hand, the classical “teleological” vision of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas, on which purpose or goal-directedness is as inherent a feature of the physical world as mass or electric charge; and the modern “mechanical” vision of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, according to which the physical world is comprised of nothing more than purposeless, meaningless particles in motion. As it happens, on the classical teleological picture, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the natural-law conception of morality are rationally unavoidable. Modern atheism and secularism have thus always crucially depended for their rational credentials on the insinuation that the modern, mechanical picture of the world has somehow been established by science. Yet this modern “mechanical” picture has never been established by science, and cannot be, for it is not a scientific theory in the first place but merely a philosophical interpretation of science. Moreover, as Feser shows, the philosophical arguments in its favor given by the early modern philosophers were notable only for being surprisingly weak. The true reasons for its popularity were then, and are now, primarily political: It was a tool by which the intellectual foundations of ecclesiastical authority could be undermined and the way opened toward a new secular and liberal social order oriented toward commerce and technology. So as to further these political ends, it was simply stipulated, by fiat as it were, that no theory inconsistent with the mechanical picture of the world would be allowed to count as “scientific.” As the centuries have worn on and historical memory has dimmed, this act of dogmatic stipulation has falsely come to be remembered as a “discovery.”

However, not only is this modern philosophical picture rationally unfounded, it is demonstrably false. For the “mechanical” conception of the natural world, when worked out consistently, absurdly entails that rationality, and indeed the human mind itself, are illusory. The so-called “scientific worldview” championed by the New Atheists thus inevitably undermines its own rational foundations; and into the bargain (and contrary to the moralistic posturing of the New Atheists) it undermines the foundations of any possible morality as well. By contrast, and as The Last Superstition demonstrates, the classical teleological picture of nature can be seen to find powerful confirmation in developments from contemporary philosophy, biology, and physics; moreover, morality and reason itself cannot possibly be made sense of apart from it. The teleological vision of the ancients and medievals is thereby rationally vindicated – and with it the religious worldview they based upon it.

Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) is widely regarded as one of the greatest political philosophers of the 20th century, yet adequate understanding of his writings stands as a challenge for current and future generations. Voegelin’s thought continued to develop at a rapid pace during the last two decades of his life, and as Ellis Sandoz has written, his work found “not only its final but its most profound expression” during this period. Voegelin’s fame stemmed mostly from his many books and the laudatory review articles published in response to them, but he was “preeminently an essayist,” as Sandoz observes. The meditative analyses and essays written in the culminating phase of Voegelin’s career not only expand and deepen his work as a whole, but also revise central components of it in ways that compel reconsideration of even his most widely read texts.

Voegelin’s books gave rise to a vast secondary literature that continues to grow, yet the exceptionally impactful late essays and meditative works have never received the scholarly commentaries they deserve because they were published originally as journal articles or chapters in edited collections. This volume remedies that shortcoming with 14 critical analyses that elucidate the late essays while also addressing their implications for the entirety of Voegelin’s thought. The commentaries will prove invaluable to students and scholars in political science, philosophy, history, theology, and other disciplines, serving as a companion piece to the singularly important Vol. 12 of Voegelin’s Collected Works, Published Essays 1966–1985.

Peter Fraser revisits stories told onscreen that in different ways all convey clear and ringing truths and touch the deepest human chords. Spanning different time periods and cultures, Twelve Films about Love and Heaven speaks to the hearts of those who cry at old movies and the old abiding Faith, and who believe a well-written book is always worth the time. It is a reminder to both artists and spectators that the pursuit of virtue, and above all in our family roles, is the greatest of adventures and the most glorious of victories. 

The importance of engaging the problems of contemporary political theory has brought us to an unprecedented reliance on the historical commentary already provided by giants like Alexis de Tocqueville and Edmund Burke. Among these is also the less often noted Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges and his landmark work, The Ancient City. 

Fustel de Coulanges plunged deep into the world and language of the ancient Greeks and Romans. His presentation of religion as a factor in civilization equates to a vision of how and why the ancient city-state died. This is a non-partisan and spiritually unmotivated work of political-philosophical merit, in which from a perspective of Cartesian doubt Coulanges strips away layers of cultural façade until the most foundational and hidden stratospheres of Greek and Roman institutions are laid bare. 

The Ancient City places ancient Greek and Roman cities in relation to each other, and the daily life in both are illustrated in detail. Morality and custom are rendered as living and breathing entities, and the dynamics of social life are displayed in a way that the tragic influence of Christianity is rendered obvious, yet not heartbreaking. 

This new translation is an essential component to a well-rounded understanding of where the notion of the city and political ordering come from, the role of religion in politics, the development of law, and its reliance on custom and the eternal fabric of the family.