Ranked by many scholars as one of the most important moral philosophers of the twentieth century, Aurel Kolnai has been inexplicably neglected in this country until quite recently. He is best known for his works of political philosophy, recently published under the title The Utopian Mind: A Critical Study in Moral and Political Philosophy. Here, for the first time ever in English, is Kolnai's magnum opus, his Political Memoirs, superbly annotated and edited by Francesca Murphy of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. The memoirs recount the author's life, from his childhood in the...

The title of political theorist Alan L. Mittleman's captivating new book is drawn from the patriarch Jacob's blessing to his children and grandchildren. The blessing contains the promise that Judah will become a royal house, perhaps forever. Kings, of course, ceased in Israel, but politics did not. Regime replaced regime. National independence was compromised and lost, regained and lost again. Yet the attention to things political was never lost. Old texts were applied to new political realities. Political awareness and thought, constantly transformed and adapted to new historical exigencies,...

Foundations of Economic Personalism is a series of three book-length monographs, each closely examining a significant dimension of the Center for Economic Personalism's unique synthesis of Christian personalism and free-economic market theory. In the aftermath of the momentous geo-political and economic changes of the late 1980s, a small group of Christian social ethicists began to converse with free-market economists over the morality of market activity. This interdisciplinary exchange eventually led to the founding of a new academic subdiscipline under the rubric of economic personalism....

Hannah Arendt wrote that America was the greatest adventure of European man. Times have changed and stale anti-American sentiment flowing west from the European continent has replaced the flood of Europeans crossing the Atlantic in search of the American Dream. In Olof Murelius, one encounters a European observer who grasps what so many Europeans now miss, the adventure that is still America. Don't Play Away Your Cards, Uncle Sam is a spirited account of the growth of a nation. Murelius's work cuts a broad swathe through American history from the Founding Fathers to Bill Clinton, accentuating...

In Society as a Department Store Ryszard Legutko wrestles with the emancipatory ideology promulgated by postmodernists, libertarians, and liberal thinkers. Legutko argues that modern Western liberals have embraced a revolutionary ethic; they have turned their backs on their own cultural heritage, and used its political and ideological apparatus to destroy classical metaphysics and epistemology. The book considers the paradoxical implications of this state of affairs for Eastern European intellectuals arguing that, with the triumph of liberalism over communism, these intellectuals feel...

Perhaps no issue is more divisive among philosophers, jurists and theologians than the nature of human liberty. Liberty is central to the claims of the Christian Gospel, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the American Revolution. But discussions about the nature of freedom have been characterized by profound disagreement and unsettling questions. What does it mean to be free? Is freedom worth more than mens' lives? Why should man be free? What, if any, legitmate responsibilities accompany freedom? These subjects are that the heart of Samuel Gregg's new book On Ordered Liberty. Beginning with...

What would the world be like if we no longer needed meaning? Australian sociologist Michael Casey's revealing work charts the collapse of the metaphysical world and the innate human need for meaning. With the decline of Christianity and the demise of secular universalism in the west, the meaning and value of metaphysical culture has been replaced by an entirely new post-metaphysical world. In Meaninglessness, Casey revisits the social theory of Nietzsche, Freud, and Rorty, in order to conceive how this post-metaphysical culture may take shape in the third millennium. Framing questions of...

This pioneering book charts how President George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" creates a new path for American Social Policy. There is a growing interest in testing the proposition that faith-based organizations (FBOs) could do even greater good, especially if government supports an expanded role. The organizations represent a potentially valuable, but controversial, resource because they offer to fight a very different war against America's social ills. This work offers three conclusions. First, FBOs are effective in dealing with chronic social problems because they spark personal...

Confronting the challenges of freedom that has pervaded the world at the turn of the millennium has been for many different reasons, a struggle for people across the world. This reader offers thoughts and insights on freedom's challenge.