Our friends at Justin Press have recently published two wonderful books especially appealing to those of us who share their admiration of the brilliant English historian Christopher Dawson.
The Annotated Quotable Dawson
Christopher Dawson, the greatest Catholic historian of the twentieth century, remains the final authority on the relation between religion and culture and is one of the most original thinkers of the modern era.
The Annotated Quotable Dawson is a gateway to his work, offering the reader a glimpse of the astonishing breadth and depth of his learning and wisdom. Dawson’s comments on a wide range of subjects confirm Frank Sheed’s opinion that while Dawson had not read everything, there was nothing it was safe to assume he had not read.
Footnotes from the writings of Dawson’s contemporaries, G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, provide further insight and perspective on matters of enduring importance to any reader with a concern for the past and future of humanity.
Christopher Dawson’s Saints
Christopher Dawson’s Saints gathers together his scattered writings on saints and their formative role in history and offers a glimpse of history’s “mysterious and inexplicable element due not only to the influence of chance or the initiative of the individual genius, but also to the creative power of spiritual forces.”
There are few, even among Catholics, who realize the importance of the lives of the saints for the history of Western civilization. Nowhere else do we find such a rich tradition of authentic biographical material, which throws light on almost every aspect of life and thought for a period of nineteen hundred years. The lives of the saints have created the pattern of Christian culture through the centuries. They have been the archetypes of Christian experience through which successive generations have learnt the following of Christ according to the forms of their own age and culture.~Christopher Dawson
Christopher Dawson, the greatest Catholic historian of the twentieth century, devoted his life to the study of Christian culture, the “periphery of a circle which has its centre in the Incarnation and the faith of the Church and the lives of the saints.”
(Above descriptions from Justin Press where both are available for purchase.)
These books would be perfectly complemented by Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson by the co-founder of The Imaginative Conservative, Bradley J. Birzer.
All three offer a great appreciation of this most essential thinker who inspires many of us at The Imaginative Conservative.
Yum! Time to get on the TIC bookshop site! Many thanks, Winston!
I think the Catholic Church have got their heads around this problem by beatifying and canonising more contemporary figures, a process seemingly started by Pope JPII and pursued vigorously by Popes Benedict XVI and Francis I. To me, they’ll grasp the brass-ring when they canonise The Blessed Karl of Austria, the last Habsburg Emperor (thus far) and a much-needed model for modern public servants.