DYNAMICS OF WORLD HISTORY
By Christopher Dawson
Edited by John J. Mulloy
with a new Introduction by Dermot Quinn
List Item No. 317
ISBN: 1-882926-78-1 (cloth)
500 pages (includes Index)
List Price: $29.95
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List Item No. 317a
ISBN: 1-882926-79-x (paper)
500 pages (includes Index)
List Price: $16.95
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Several major themes run through Dawson's work, including the interdependence of history and sociology; the need to go beyond nationalist history toward a history of the entire process of cultural development; the need to study not abstract Man but particular men in their local relations, including their relations with the land; a trenchant critique of urban industrialism, rootless cosmopolitanism, and bourgeois culture; and a firm conviction of the radically destructive character of cultural imperialism. But perhaps the most unique aspect of Dawson's historiography was its unequivocal insistence on the determinative importance of religion in shaping and sustaining civilizations.
Religion, Dawson firmly believed, is the great creative force in any culture, and the loss of a society's historic religion therefore portends a process of social dissolution. For this reason Dawson concluded that Western society must find a way to revitalize its spiritual life if it is to avoid irreversible decay. Progress, the real religion of modernity, is insufficient to sustain cultural health. And an ahistorical, secularized Christianity is an oxymoron, a pseudo-religion only nominally related to the historical religion of the West.
Dawson held that the hope of the present age lay in the reconciliation of the religious tradition of Christianity with the intellectual tradition of humanism and the new knowledge about man and nature provided by modern science. Dynamics of World History shows that though such a task may be difficult, it is not impossible.
What They're Saying...
"[T]his hefty volume gathers thirty-one of Dawson's best essays, which together demonstrate his overall understanding of the unfolding of world history in light of his faith."
— Religion and Liberty
"Must Read."
— Today's Books
"[T]his book, arguably the finest and most definitive summary of his thought, is recommended without the slightest reservation to historians, philosophers, artists, theologians, and lovers of letters."
— Touchstone
"This historiography ranks with the works of men like Spengler, Northrop, and Toynbee."
— Educational Book Review
"For breadth of knowledge and lucidity of style [Dawson] has few rivals.... He knows what his European and American colleagues are doing and his judgments on their work are exceptionally fair.... [I]t is safe to say that this selection of his best writing will also be read with interest outside academic circles."
— New York Times Book Review
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