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America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding

America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding

Current price: $18.95
Publication Date: November 20th, 2021
Publisher:
Ignatius Press
ISBN:
9781621645016
Pages:
384
Usually Ships in 1 to 5 Days

Description

The Founding of the American Republic is on trial. Critics say it was a poison pill with a time-release formula; we are its victims. Its principles are responsible for the country's moral and social disintegration because they were based on the Enlightenment falsehood of radical individual autonomy.

In this well-researched book, Robert Reilly declares: not guilty. To prove his case, he traces the lineage of the ideas that made the United States, and its ordered liberty, possible. These concepts were extraordinary when they first burst upon the ancient world: the Judaic oneness of God, who creates ex nihilo and imprints his image on man; the Greek rational order of the world based upon the Reason behind it; and the Christian arrival of that Reason (Logos) incarnate in Christ. These may seem a long way from the American Founding, but Reilly argues that they are, in fact, its bedrock. Combined, they mandated the exercise of both freedom and reason.

These concepts were further developed by thinkers in the Middle Ages, who formulated the basic principles of constitutional rule. Why were they later rejected by those claiming the right to absolute rule, then reclaimed by

About the Author

Robert R. Reilly is Director of the Westminster Institute. In his twenty-five years of government service, he taught at National Defense University, was Senior Advisor for Information Strategy in the Pentagon, directed Voice of America, and served as Special Assistant to the U.S. President. He attended Georgetown University and the Claremont Graduate University, and has published widely on American politics, foreign policy, and classical music. His other books include Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything, Surprised by Beauty: A Listener's Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music, and The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis.

Robert R. Reilly is Director of the Westminster Institute. In his twenty-five years of government service, he taught at National Defense University, was Senior Advisor for Information Strategy in the Pentagon, directed Voice of America, and served as Special Assistant to the U.S. President. He attended Georgetown University and the Claremont Graduate University, and has published widely on American politics, foreign policy, and classical music. His other books include Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything, Surprised by Beauty: A Listener's Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music, and The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis.