Beauty Will Save the World

Recovering the Human in an Ideological Age

Gregory Wolfe

• Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781610171007
• eBook ISBN: 9781497620865
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

Culture, Not Politics
We live in a politicized time. Culture wars and increasingly partisan conflicts have reduced public discourse to shouting matches between ideologues. But rather than merely bemoaning the vulgarity and sloganeering of this era, says acclaimed author and editor Gregory Wolfe, we should seek to enrich the language of civil discourse. And the best way to do that, Wolfe believes, is to draw nourishment from the deepest sources of culture: art and religious faith. Wolfe has been called "one of the most incisive and persuasive voices of our generation, " and this penetrating and wide-ranging book makes a powerful case for the importance of beauty and imagination to cultural renewal. He begins by tracing his own journey from a young culture warrior bent on attacking the modern world to a career devoted to nurturing the creation of culture through contemporary literature and art that renew the Western tradition. Along the way, Wolfe finds in Renaissance Christian humanists like Erasmus and Thomas More—and their belief that imagination and the arts are needed to offset the danger of ideological abstractions— a "distant mirror" in which to see our own times.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue: The Four Cultures and Me
• PART ONE: FROM IDEOLOGY TO HUMANISM
• PART TWO: CHRISTIANITY, LITERATURE, AND MODERNITY
• PART THREE: SIX WRITERS
• PART FOUR: THREE ARTISTS
• PART FIVE: FOUR MEN OF LETTERS
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• Copyright