Supper at Emmaus: Great Themes in Western Culture and Intellectual History - Hardcover

Glenn W. Olsen (author)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813228948 ISBN 13: 9780813228945

Publisher: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016

Synopsis

Supper at Emmaus traces various important intellectual topics from the ancient world to the modern period. Generally, as in its treatment of the question of whether the long-standing contrast between cyclical and linear views of history is helpful, it introduces important thinkers who have considered the question. A preoccupation of the book is the appearance and reappearance across the centuries of patterns used to organize temporal and cultural experience. AYer an opening essay on transcendental truth and cultural relativism, the second chapter traces a distinction, common in historical writings during the past two centuries, between an alleged ancient classical "cyclic" view of time and history, used to describe the claimed repetitiveness of and similaritiesbetween historical events ("nothing is new under the sun"), and a contrasting Jewish-Christian linear view, sometimes described as providential in that it moves through a series of unique events to some end intended by God. In the latter, history is "about something," the education of the human race or the redemption of humankind. As in each of the remaining essays, the book then attempts to draw out the limitations of what the current consensus on this topic has become. It does this for such things as our current understanding of religious toleration, humanism, natural law, and teleology. Some of the essays, such as those on debate about Augustine's understanding of marriage or the concluding illustrated essay on the baroque city of Lecce, are published for the first time. Others are based on previously published contributions to the scholarly literature, though generally each of these chapters concludes with a postscript that engages with current scholarly debate on the subject.

About this title

Review:

"A collection of intelligent, erudite essays that touch on many periods and themes in Western intellectual history. Will be stimulating to scholars working in the particular fields Olsen's essays address, and to those interested in the broader relationship between medieval and modern ideas and in the development of Western historical thought." -Adam Schwartz, author of The Third Spring: G.K. Chesterton, Graham Greene, Christopher Dawson, and David Jones (CUA Press)

About the Author:

Glenn W. Olsen is the author of The Turn to Transcendence: The Role of Religion in the Twenty-First Century and The Road to Emmaus: The Catholic Dialogue with America and Modernity, both published by CUA Press.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Catholic University of America Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0813228948
• ISBN 13: 9780813228945
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 360