The three books in this volume were written in France in the early 1930's. Maritain accepts the responsibility of a Christian philosopher by addressing the problems of civil and world war. He discusses issues such as the relationship between freedom and religion, the opposition of democracy to any form of totalitarianism, the relationship between spirituality and temporality, and how Christian civilization in opposition to communism and capitalism.

The three books presented in this volume, Integral Humanism, Freedom in the Modern World, and A Letter on Independence, were all written in the early 1930s, a time of dire trouble for France. France was then surrounded by enemies preparing for war and was itself so violently split between parties of Left and Right that it seemed on the verge of Civil War. In this collection, Jacques Maritain accepts the responsibility of a Christian philosopher to actively address the agonizing practical problems of the time. Maritain discusses major political issues such as the relation of freedom and religion, the opposition of democracy to any form of totalitarianism, the relation of the spiritual and the temporal, the need for an integral and Christian humanism, and the prospects for a new Christian civilization, all in opposition to the materialism of both communism and capitalism. Against the fierce antagonism of the parties of the political Left and Right, Maritain declares a plague on both their houses and strongly affirms the need for independence from both of them. He does so by distinguishing between two senses of the terms Left and Right, one denoting a temperamental or physiological disposition, the other a definite political position. In the latter sense, Maritain asserts that he is an independent, while acknowledging that he is, by temperament, a man of the Left.

The three books presented in this volume, Integral Humanism, Freedom in the Modern World, and A Letter on Independence, were all written in the early 1930s, a time of dire trouble for France. France was then surrounded by enemies preparing for war and was itself so violently split between parties of Left and Right that it seemed on the verge of Civil War. In this collection, Jacques Maritain accepts the responsibility of a Christian philosopher to actively address the agonizing practical problems of the time. Maritain discusses major political issues such as the relation of freedom and religion, the opposition of democracy to any form of totalitarianism, the relation of the spiritual and the temporal, the need for an integral and Christian humanism, and the prospects for a new Christian civilization, all in opposition to the materialism of both communism and capitalism. Against the fierce antagonism of the parties of the political Left and Right, Maritain declares a plague on both their houses and strongly affirms the need for independence from both of them. He does so by distinguishing between two senses of the terms Left and Right, one denoting a temperamental or physiological disposition, the other a definite political position. In the latter sense, Maritain asserts that he is an independent, while acknowledging that he is, by temperament, a man of the Left.

By early 1943, it had become increasingly clear that the Allies would win the Second World War. Around the same time, it also became increasingly clear to many Christian intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic that the soon-to-be-victorious nations were not culturally or morally prepared for their success. A war won by technological superiority merely laid the groundwork for a post-war society governed by technocrats. These Christian intellectuals-Jacques Maritain, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, and Simone Weil, among others-sought both to articulate a sober and reflective critique of their own culture and to outline a plan for the moral and spiritual regeneration of their countries in the post-war world. In this book, Alan Jacobs explores the poems, novels, essays, reviews, and lectures of these five central figures, in which they presented, with great imaginative energy and force, pictures of the very different paths now set before the Western democracies. Working mostly separately and in ignorance of one another's ideas, the five developed a strikingly consistent argument that the only means by which democratic societies could be prepared for their world-wide economic and political dominance was through a renewal of education that was grounded in a Christian understanding of the power and limitations of human beings. The Year of Our Lord 1943 is the first book to weave together the ideas of these five intellectuals and shows why, in a time of unprecedented total war, they all thought it vital to restore Christianity to a leading role in the renewal of the Western democracies.

Writing in the late 1990s about the tendency of encyclopedists to designate existentialism a finished project, Thomas W. Busch cautions that such hasty periodization risks distorting our understanding of the contemporary philosophical scene and of depriving ourselves of vital resources for critiquing contemporary forms of oppression, what Garbriel Marcel referred to as processes of dehumanization. We should recall that "existentialism made possible present forms of Continental philosophy, all of which assume the existentialist critique of dualism, essentialism, and totality in modern philosophy," and we should acknowledge that "existentialism remains capable of haunting today's scene as an important and relevant critic." Offered in honor of Thomas W. Busch after his more than fifty years of work in philosophy, the essays in this volume attest to existentialism as a living project. The essays are written by scholars who championed existentialism in America and by scholars who now seek to extend existentialist insights into new territory, including into research in cognitive science. The essays range from studies of key figures and texts to explorations of urgent topics such as the nature of freedom and the possibility of what Busch calls "incorporation," a sense of communicative solidarity that respects difference and disagreement.

Much has been written about the great personalist philosophers of the 20th century – including Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mournier, Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas, Dietrich von Hildebrand and Edith Stein, Max Scheler and Karol Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II) – but few books cover the personalist movement as a whole. An Introduction to Personalism fills that gap. Juan Manuel Burgos shows the reader how personalist philosophy was born in response to the tragedies of two World Wars, the Great Depression, and the totalitarian regimes of the 1930s. Through a revitalization of the concept of the person, an array of thinkers developed a philosophy both rooted in the best of the intellectual tradition and capable of dialoguing with contemporary concerns. Burgos then delves into the potent ideas of more than twenty thinkers who have contributed to the growth of personalism, including Romano Guardini, Gabriel Marcel, Xavier Zubiri, and Michael Polanyi. Burgos’s encyclopedic knowledge of the movement allows for a concise and well-rounded perspective on each of the personalists studied. An Introduction to Personalism concludes with a synthesis of personalist thought, bringing together the brightest insights of each personalist philosopher into an organic whole. Burgos argues that personalism is not an eclectic hodge-podge, but a full-fledged school of philosophy, and gives a dynamic and rigorous exposition of the key features of the personalist position. Our times are marked by numerous and often contradictory ideas about the human person. An Introduction to Personalism presents an engaging anthropological vision capable of taking the lead in the debate about the meaning of human existence and of winning hearts and minds for the cause of the dignity of every person in the 21st century and beyond.

Since the early 1980s, there has been renewed scholarly interest in the concept of Christian Humanism. A number of official Catholic documents have stressed the importance of "Christian humanism," as a vehicle of Christian social teaching and, indeed, as a Christian philosophy of culture. Fundamentally, humanism aims to explore what it means to be human and what the grounds are for human flourishing. Featuring contributions from internationally renowned Christian authors from a variety of disciplines in the humanities, Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism recovers a Christian humanist ethos for our time. The volume offers a chronological overview (from patristic humanism to the Reformation and beyond) and individual examples (Jewell, Calvin) of past Christian humanisms. The chapters are connected through the theme of Christian paideia as the foundation for liberal arts education.