The Roots of Liberty is a critical collection of essays on the origin and nature of the often elusive idea of the nature of liberty. Throughout this book, the original and thought-provoking views from scholars J C Holt, Christopher W Brooks, Paul Christianson, and John Phillip Reid offer insights into the development of English ideas of liberty and the relationship those ideas hold to modern conceptions of rule of law. Ellis Sandoz's introduction details Fortescue's vision of the constitution and places each of the essays in historiographical context. Corrine C. Weston's spirited epilogue evaluates the essays' arguments.

The early political culture of the American republic was deeply influenced by the religious consciousness of the New England preachers. Indeed, it was often through the political sermon--the "pulpit of the American Revolution"--that the political rhetoric of the period was formed, refined, and transmitted. And yet the centrality of religious concerns in the lives of eighteenth-century Americans is largely neglected. This has created a blind spot regarding the fundamental acts of the American founding.Political sermons such as the fifty-five collected in this volume are unique to America, both in kind and in significance. This volume thus fills an important need if the American founding period is to be adequately understood.Ellis Sandoz is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute at Louisiana State University.

The early political culture of the American republic was deeply influenced by the religious consciousness of the New England preachers. Indeed, it was often through the political sermon--the "pulpit of the American Revolution"--that the political rhetoric of the period was formed, refined, and transmitted. And yet the centrality of religious concerns in the lives of eighteenth-century Americans is largely neglected. This has created a blind spot regarding the fundamental acts of the American founding.Political sermons such as the fifty-five collected in this volume are unique to America, both in kind and in significance. This volume thus fills an important need if the American founding period is to be adequately understood.Ellis Sandoz is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute at Louisiana State University.

China's Quest for Liberty is a personal story of a young man fully engaged in understanding the world he was born into and working toward making that world into a better and freer place to life. It is about an unexpected journey a Chinese journalist has taken to pursue freedom, involving such diverse fields or disciplines as politics, business, humanities, science and technology, government agencies and non-governmental organizations. Some took place as daily life, and some occurred in detentions or disasters. It is about a world whose dimensions have been basically obscured not only in China but also in the global public square, and walk with this young journalist, step by step, to find, paradoxically, the hope in the depth of hopelessness, the strength in acknowledging weakness, the change in substance by, among other things, keeping the form unchanged for at least a while, the youth in growing up despite growing old, the invisible in the visible, the imperishable in the perishable, the reality in the shadow of numerous fake realities, and the freedom gained not mainly through human efforts but as mercy and grace from the one who created humans and other beings. As well as digging out the overlooked Christian background in the rise of the sanctity of human life, creative culture, constitutionalism, work as a vocation, modern management, servant leadership, and catchphrases like "the global village" and "The medium is the message", the author tells of insider observations about the rise of Christianity in China generally and about Shouwang Church in particular. Through sharing these findings, this book aims to show how the one who made the universe rules the world and how this creator sets his creatures free by himself. China's Quest for Liberty is a fascinating work of nuance and surprise.

Recognized as one of the greatest novelists of all-time, Fyodor Dostoevsky continues to inspire and instigate questions about religion, philosophy, and literature. However, there has been a neglect looking at his political thought: its philosophical and religious foundations, its role in nineteenth-century Europe, and its relevance for us today. Dostoevsky's Political Thought explores Dostoevsky's political thought in his fictional and nonfictional works with contributions from scholars of political science, philosophy, history, and Russian Studies. From a variety of perspectives, these scholars contribute to a greater understanding of Dostoevsky not only as a political thinker but also as a writer, philosopher, and religious thinker.

Recognized as one of the greatest novelists of all-time, Fyodor Dostoevsky continues to inspire and instigate questions about religion, philosophy, and literature. However, there has been a neglect looking at his political thought: its philosophical and religious foundations, its role in nineteenth-century Europe, and its relevance for us today. Dostoevsky's Political Thought explores Dostoevsky's political thought in his fictional and nonfictional works with contributions from scholars of political science, philosophy, history, and Russian Studies. From a variety of perspectives, these scholars contribute to a greater understanding of Dostoevsky not only as a political thinker but also as a writer, philosopher, and religious thinker.

"Autobiographical Reflections" is a window into the mind of a man whose reassessment of the nature of history and thought has overturned traditional approaches to, and appraisals of, the Western intellectual tradition. Here we encounter the motivations for Voegelin's work, the stages in the development of his unique philosophy of consciousness, his key intellectual breakthroughs, his theory of history, and his diagnosis of the political ills of the modern age. Included in this revised volume is a glossary of terms used in Voegelin's writings. The glossary lists, defines, and illustrates from the author's writings many of the key terms employed, paying particular attention to the Greek terms. Together, the glossary and enlarged index systematically include names, subjects, ideas, writings, and terms, making this volume an indispensable help for any serious study of Eric Voegelin's oeuvre.

In Search of Order brings to a conclusion Eric Voegelin's masterwork, Order and History. Voegelin conceived Order and History as "a philosophical inquiry concerning the principal types of order of human existence in society and history as well as the corresponding symbolic forms." In previous volumes, Voegelin discussed the imperial organizations of the ancient Near East and their existence in the form of the cosmological myth; the revelatory form of existence in history, developed by Moses and the prophets of the Chosen People; the polis, the Hellenic myth, and the development of philosophy as the symbolism of order; and the evolution of the great religions, especially Christianity.

This final volume of "Order and History" is devoted to the elucidation of the experience of transcendence that Voegelin discussed in earlier volumes. He aspires to show in a theoretically acute manner the exact nature of transcendental experiences. Voegelin's philosophical inquiry unfolds in the historical context of the great symbolic enterprise of restating man's humanity under the horizon of the modern sciences and in resistance to the manifold forces of our age that deform human existence. His stature as one of the major philosophical forces of the twentieth century clearly emerges from these concluding pages. "In Search of Order" deepens and clarifies the meditative movement that Voegelin, now in reflective distance to his own work, sees as having been operative throughout his search.

Because of Voegelin's death, on January 19, 1985, "In Search of Order" is briefer than it otherwise might have been; however, the theoretical presentation that he had set for himself is essentially completed here. Just as this volume serves Voegelin well in his striking analyses of Hegel, Hesiod, and Plato, it will serve as a model for the reader's own efforts in search of order.

As debates rage over the place of faith in our national life, Tocqueville's nineteenth-century crediting of religion for shaping America is largely overlooked today. Now, in ""Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America"", Ellis Sandoz reveals the major role that Protestant Christianity played in the formation and early period of the American republic. Sandoz traces the rise of republican government from key sources in Protestant civilization, paying particular attention to the influence of the Bible on the Founders and the blossoming of the American mind in the eighteenth century. Sandoz analyzes the religious debt of the emergent American community and its elevation of the individual person as unique in the eyes of the Creator. He shows that the true distinction of American republicanism lies in its grounding of human dignity in spiritual individualism and an understanding of man's capacity for self-government under providential guidance. Along the way, he addresses such topics as the neglected question of the education of the Founders for their unique endeavor, common law constitutionalism, the place of Latin and Greek classics in the Founders' thought, and the texture of religious experience from the Great Awakening to the Declaration of Independence. To establish a unifying theoretical perspective for his study, Sandoz considers the philosophical underpinnings of religion and the contribution that Eric Voegelin made to our understanding of religious experience. He contributes fresh studies of the character of Voegelin's thought: its relationship to Christianity; his debate with Leo Strauss over reason, revelation, and the meaning of philosophy; and the theory of Gnosticism as basic to radical modernity. He also provides a powerful account of the spirit of Voegelin's later writings, contrasting the political scientist with the meditative spiritualist and offering new insight into volume 5 of Order and History. Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America concludes with timely reflections on the epoch now unfolding in the shadow of Islamic jihadism. Bringing a wide range of materials into a single volume, it confronts current academic concerns with religion while offering new insight into the construction of the American polity - and the heart of Americanism as we know it today.

The thirty-fourth volume of "The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin" consists of Voegelin's "Autobiographical Reflections," reprinted from the 1989 edition with additional annotations; a glossary of terms used in Voegelin's writings, illustrated with examples from throughout the "Collected Works"; a volume index; and a cumulative index. The last covers the entire edition, apart from "The History of Political Ideas, " which has its own index, and volumes 29 and 30, the "Selected Correspondence," which are at present not published. The glossary lists, defines, and illustrates from the author's writings many of the key terms employed, paying particular attention to the Greek terms. The cumulative index supplies a more comprehensive access to the contents of the entire "Collected Works." Together, the glossary and index systematically include names, subjects, ideas, writings, and terms, making this culminating volume an indispensable help for any serious study of Eric Voegelin's oeuvre.

A fascinating collection of studies, The Politics of Truth and Other Untimely Essays explores the historical and theoretical underpinnings of personal liberty and free government and provides a trenchant analysis of the crisis of civic consciousness endangering both of them today. The book addresses a range of issues in contemporary political philosophy and constitutional theory. These are seen to be all the more urgant in importance because of the surging aspirations for liberty in the wake of the collapes we see throughout the Middle East, Africa, and other areas, and the withdrawal from leadership in America and Europe. While each essay can stand alone, there is an underlying thematic unity to the collection. Several essays focus on Ameriacan political thought, with emphasis on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Two elements in particular, are treatet: the jurisprudential and common law background to the American political tradition and the centrality of religion within the unfolding of the American poltiical experiement. Sandoz explores the uncommon alliance of philosophers, statesmen, and evangelicts during the nation's founding This alliance, nurturing communities of persons bound togehter by their faith and a mutual regared for one another, played a vital role in the establishment of the system of freedom under law. Sandoz sees the tension between religion and natural law as a constant in the human struggle for freedom. That the preservation of liberty under law is no easy task is acknowledged and addressed, Anyone interested in teh "politics" of "truth" will appreciated this book.

The early political culture of the American republic was so deeply influenced by the religious consciousness of the New England preachers that it was often through the political sermon that the political rhetoric of the period was formed, refined and transmitted. Political sermons such as the fifty-five collected in this work are unique to America, in both kind and significance, because they address the centrality of religious concerns in the lives of eighteenth-century Americans.

The early political culture of the American republic was so deeply influenced by the religious consciousness of the New England preachers that it was often through the political sermon that the political rhetoric of the period was formed, refined, and transmitted. Political sermons such as the fifty-five collected in this work are unique to America, in both kind and significance, because they address the centrality of religious concerns in the lives of eighteenth-century Americans.