Excerpt from German Culture Catholicism and the World War: A Defense Against the Book La Guerre Allemande Et Le Catholicisme The French Catholics, when they declared literary war on Germany, found the English definition of, and anathema against, German culture to their likino Aside from every other consideration, this is but natural: for it has ever been the proud boast of Frenchmen that la grande nation is setting the pace for civilization. And thus the general staff of The Catholic Committee for French Propaganda Abroad set to work to systematize the accusations against Germany and scientifically to trace the brutal forces that so long could beguile the civilized nations under the mask of culture, through the successive stages to their very origin. That which staggered mankind when the German armies rushed victori ously through Belgium and Northern France, is merely the final result of the evolution of German thought applied to practical deeds. German Protestantism is the very negation of Christianity, of Christian civiliza tion, and of all it implies. Even Luther's Protestantism which still showed some traces of Christian ideas, is a thing of the past; what we see revealed in Belgium and France, 15 the retrogression from Protest autism to genuine paganism. Germanic paganism was only temporarily subdued by Christianity; the old giant, of whom Ge'rres wrote, arose from the grave beneath the rock, to terrify the meek, peaceful, unsuspecting Christian nations. Or is it Heine who heralded the mighty giant's re-materialization, or K ant, or Nietzsche, or Treitschke, or Bernhardi, or, perhaps, - the Ber liner Blatt? At any rate, some German has at some time written some thing sin ilar and thus laid the foundation, on which the scions of the once truly great and admirable science and scholarly erudition of France built their torture-chamber, in which Germany's honor and good name and German Kultur are pilloried and racked and stamped with the stigmaof pagan vandalism. And this wrenched and blood-stained object of hor ror and woe is then exhibited by the French executioners to the wonder ing neutrals, while the chorus of the Comite catholique shouts its Sic semper tyrannis! And Msgr. Baudrillart, M. Goyau, M. Gaudeau and the other heroes of the tragedy announce to the international audience: Civilization is avenged. German culture received its just reward. Listen ye, of what it has been guilty: It sought not only to overthrow the kingdom of God and extinguish the stars of heaven (as our illus trious Viviani once claimed he did I), but also to bar the progress of all civilization. The splendor of the luminous world-capital on the Seine was to be immersed in the darkness of desolation and oblivion; dense forests, as they covered the hunting - grounds of the forebears of the Ger man vandals, were to shroud the hills and vales of sunny France and of every other civilized country (serbia, Montenegro, Japan and Russia not excluded) the elk and the aurochs were to graze on the boulevards of Paris; and as the Cimbri and Teutones crossed the Alps, so the Ger mans of today would, if victorious, cross the oceans and bring ruin and devastation to every land on the globe. But, fortunately, France and her noble allies (and the black and brown and yellow legions of honor from Africa, Asia and Australia) have unfurled the banner of civiliza tion and humanity and democracy, and the labarum of Catholicism; and German culture and the German people, not excepting those who con tinue to call themselves Catholics in spite of being relegated by us with the rest of their tribe to the oak - forests of Wotan, Odin, Thor, are humiliated to the dust. - although only as far as the success of our liter ary warfare is concerned. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

The 1960 publication of We Hold These Truths marked a significant event in the history of modern American thought. Since that time, Sheed & Ward has kept the book in print and has published several studies of John Courtney Murray's life and work. We are proud to present a new edition of this classic text, which features a comprehensive introduction by Peter Lawler that places Murray in the context of Catholic and American history and thought while revealing his relevance today. From the new Introduction by Peter Lawler: The Jesuit John Courtney Murray (1904-67) was, in his time, probably the best known and most widely respected American Catholic writer on the relationship between Catholic philosophy and theology and his country's political life. The highpoint of his influence was the publication of We Hold These Truths in the same year as an election of our country's first Catholic president. Those two events were celebrated by a Time cover story (December 12, 1960) on Murray's work and influence. The story's author, Protestant Douglas Auchincloss, reported that it was "The most relentlessly intellectual cover story I've done." His amazingly wide ranging and dense--if not altogether accurate--account of Murray's thought was crowned with a smart and pointed conclusion: "If anyone can help U.S. Catholics and their non-Catholic countrymen toward the disagreement that precedes understanding--John Courtney Murray can." . . . Murray's work, of course, is treated with great respect and has had considerable influence, but now it's time to begin to think of him as one of America's very few genuine political philosophers. His disarmingly lucid and accessible prose has caused his book to be widely cited and celebrated, but it still is not well understood. It is both praised and blamed for reconciling Catholic faith with the fundamental premises of American political life. It is praised by liberals for paving the way for Vatican II's embrace of the American idea of religious liberty, and it is

This work challenges the commonly accepted view that Christianity is inherently compatible with modern democratic society. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it argues that there is no necessary connection between Christianity and any form of government.

With the onset of a more conservative political climate in the 1980s, social and especially labour history saw a decline in the popularity that they had enjoyed throughout the 1960s and 1970s. This led to much debate on its future and function within the historical discipline as a whole. Some critics declared it dead altogether. Others have proposed a change of direction and a more or less exclusive focus on images and texts. The most constructive proposals have suggested that labour history in the past concentrated too much on class and that other identities of working people should be taken into account to a larger extent than they had been previously, such as gender, religion, and ethnicity. Although class as a social category is still as valid as it has been before, the questions now to be asked are to what extent non-class identities shape working people's lives and mentalities and how these are linked with the class system. In this volume some of the leading European historians of labour and the working classes address these questions. Two non-European scholars comment on their findings from an Indian, resp. American, point of view. The volume is rounded off by a most useful bibliography of recent studies in European labour history, class, gender, religion, and ethnicity.

This book critically explores the idea of Europe since the French Revolution from the perspective of intellectual history. It traces the dominant and recurring theme of Europe-as-Christendom in discourse concerning the relationship of religion, politics and society, in historiography and hermeneutics, and in theories and constructions of identity and ‘otherness’. It examines the evolution of a grand narrative by which European elites have sought to define European and national identity. This narrative, the author argues, maintains the existence of common historical and intellectual roots, common values, culture and religion. The book explores its powerful legacy in the positive creation of a sense of European unity, the ways in which it has been exploited for ideological purposes, and its impact on non-Christian communities within Europe.