Tema: What are you currently reading?

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History is the key to understanding men-whether as nations, families, or individuals. For Catholics, history has an even higher purpose beside. For them, history is the unfolding of God's Will in time, and the attempts of men either to conform themselves to or to resist that Will. But American Catholic historians have generally refrained from exploring their own national history with these principles, preferring instead to adopt the analysis of their non-Catholic colleagues, save when looking at purely Catholic topics (and sometimes not then). It is vital then, for Catholics, especially young Catholics, to have a good and proper understanding of their country's history. To exercise their patriotism, they must work for the conversion of the United States; to do this effectively, they must understand the forces and events which brought forth not only the religion of Americanism and the country itself, but also the sort of Catholicism which, in 300 years, failed so dismally to bring this conversion about. This book attempts to reinterpret the better known episodes of our history in accordance with the Faith, and to point up lesser-known details which will give factual proof of the truth of this reinterpretation.

Portions of Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Homage to Catalonia by Orwell. A rather bewildering book.

Skimming through Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides. I think I need to refamiliarize myself with Aristotle before I go further into this. Also re-reading The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great. After this is Democracy in America, an honest appraisal and critique on the strengths & weaknesses of American society and politics in the 1830s by Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchmen of the ancien regime. Outside The American Commonwealth by the English viscount, James Bryce, this is probably the most objective (and correct) European analysis of American politics as seen from a purely European perspective and de Tocqueville correctly ascertains in a rather prophetic manner in the 1830s what has since come to pass in the U.S.: party politics and the tyranny of the majority in the name of electoral freedom an equality. Good reading!

Presented from the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant perspectives.

"Devils", by Fiodor Dostoyevsky. The classical English translation by Constance Garnett, but with a new title, more accurately translated according to the sense in the Russian original. One of the masterpieces of the Russian genius, dealing with political conspiracy in late 19th century Russia.

Divine Madness: Plato's Case Against Secular Humanism, in addition to The Virtue of War. The book description on Amazon dot com is thus:

The popular Thomistic philosopher and writer Josef Pieper focuses on the thesis of Plato, which at first sight appears strange and unrealistic, that those experiences that advance human life to its true fullness are bestowed on us only during a "god-given" state of "being-beside-oneself". This thesis is then resolutely confronted with our contemporary and above all psychoanalytical knowledge of man's nature, as well as with the Christian conception of man's existence, thus revealing its amazing unexpected relevance.
"Man's real spiritual patrimony is achieved and preserved only through a willingly accepted openness: openness for divine revelation, for the salutary pain of catharsis, for the recollecting power of the fine arts, for the emotional shock brought about by eros and caritas-in short, through the attitude rooted in the mysterious experience that Plato called theia mania."

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Good ol rebs, even in New York.

The Pope's Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force that Defended the Vatican.

With Arthurian grandeur the Papal Zouaves marched into Italy in the mid-nineteenth century, summoned by the Pope under siege as the Wars of the Risorgimento raged. Motivated by wanderlust, a sense of duty and the call of faith, some 20,000 Catholic men from around the world rallied to Vatican City to defend her gates against Sardinian marauders. Volunteers came from France, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Austria, and many other countries, including the United States. The battles that ensued lasted over 10 years, among a shifting array of allies and enemies and are among history’s most fascinating yet largely overlooked episodes. Napoleon, Pius IX, and Bismarck all make appearances in the story, but at the center were the Zouaves--steeped in a knightly code of honor, and unflinching in battle as any modern warrior--as the Church they vowed to defend to the death teetered at the brink of destruction.

The Pope's Legion: The Multinational Fighting Force that Defended the Vatican: Charles A. Coulombe: 9780230617568: Amazon.com: Books