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The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics without God
 
 
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The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics without God (Hardcover)

by George Weigel (Author) "At the far western end of the axis that traverses Paris from the Louvre down the Champs Elysees and through the Arc de Triomphe, crossing..." (more)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Basic Books; export ed edition (16 Mar 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0465092667
  • ISBN-13: 978-0465092666
  • Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 12.4 x 2.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 562,760 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

This provocative book by leading Catholic commentator George Weigel examines Europe's crisis of culture and exposes it as a crisis of secularism Contrasting the civilization that created the "cube" of the Great Arch of La Defense in Paris with the culture that produced the "cathedral" of Notre-Dame, Weigel contends that Western Europe has abandoned its Christian roots and has embraced in its place a soulless secularism that threatens to erode the traditional order in the region. He traces the rise of secularism back to horrors of the twentieth century - the slaughters of World War I, Naziism, and communism - which were themselves breakdowns, not consequences, of the traditional European culture. He goes on to look formation and expansion of the European Union, arguing that this has fostered the move towards secularism. Weigel contends that a Europe that abandons its Christian heritage is not one that is better prepared to protect human rights, democracy, or even its own citizens. Weigel believes that Europe, especially Western Europe, is at such odds with the US on international affairs because it has abandoned the Christian roots that had always anchored the region's worldview. He offers a provocative analysis of what he sees as the beginning of Europe's demise and what the results could be for both Europe and America.


About the Author

George Weigel, a Roman Catholic theologian and one of America's leading commentators on religion and public life, is the author of acclaimed international bestseller, Witness to Hope as well as numerous other books. He lives in Maryland, USA
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At the far western end of the axis that traverses Paris from the Louvre down the Champs Elysees and through the Arc de Triomphe, crossing the Seine at the Pont de Neuilly, is La Grande Arche de la Defense-like the more famous Pompidou Center, one of the grands projets of the late French president, Francois Mitterland. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars EUROPE: ALL IS NOT LOST, YET, 13 Nov 2006
By Michael JR Jose (the UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics without God (Paperback)
Anyone wanting a quick way to assets the general merits and intellectual muscle flexed in the book should glance at the chapter headed `Two Ideas of Freedom', contrasting the secular and sacred versions of Freedom with luminous brevity. However, the general easy-reading contemporary nature of the prose will be better gauged from the later chapter `The Cost of Boredom', which sums up why white post-Christian Europe cannot be bothered to procreate with sufficient vigour to stem its population decline, and our `postpolitical wilderness' of rule by faceless bureaucrats.

As an American theologian and the biographer of Pope John Paul II, George Weigel is well placed to speak with perspective on Europe's current problems. The main thrust of the book is a critique of atheistic secular humanism (ASH) and its many virus variants which have infected the Euro-Russian continent. The emphasis is on the 20th century, and picks up the root philosophical and cultural causes of World War I and II, and the rebellion of the `Les Soixante-Huitards' (1968 riots) with remarkably fluent and coherent reference to Western European history as far back as the High Middle Ages of Aquinas and Occam (1200-), and glancing reference much further back. The Cube is the intellectual symbol of the sterile closed-universe ASH viewpoint, the architectural colossus of 'La Grande Arche' of Paris, being an open cube of white marble and glass about 40 stories tall and 348 feet wide. The cathedral is the rather more famous church of Notre Dame, which despite its ancient complexities and beauty in spire and tower, would `fit comfortably inside the Grand Arch'. This current edition is dated 2005, and probably just missed the rioting and looting and epidemic of car-burnouts that afflicted France that year.

It is difficult to do anything like reviewing justice to this book at one reading, but one of the central themes is that `western Europe is committing a form of demographic suicide' (p.5), with a general greying of the population and coming universal pensions crisis due to a birthrate being less than the replacement rate. He might have added that Russia currently has an annual death-rate that exceeds the birthrate by 750,000, but his purpose does not extend to a proper vilification of communism. The root cause of our lack of reproductive enthusiasm is analysed to be spiritual nihilism, emptiness, and lack of purpose in life, having rejected the Christian roots of our historical culture. Its criticism of the purblind inability of the EU to see the problem, let alone grapple with it, will gladden the hearts of those who oppose this political con-trick that is the eurozone--despite the (to me) astonishing revelations he makes of the catholic Christians who were the architects of the whole scheme.

He is frequently at pains to trace the intellectual, cultural, and moral roots of western Europe (the eastern empire is sparingly but properly referenced, and not ignored as is so often the case). Recently the ruling EU elites totally refused to recognise the Christian heritage of Europe in the drafting of its 70,000 word constitutional treaty. Our roots apparently jumping from the classical civilisation of Greece and Rome to that of the humanist Enlightenment of Descartes and Kant (which merely extracted the parts it liked from Christian culture, and promptly forgot what it takes to develop and preserve them, which is a living faith in a Judaeo-Christian God.)

He invites us to contemplate a striking list of Christian scientists, artists, politicians, leaders, warriors, and philosophers--and asks us to imagine Europe [history itself, I would say. Just consider that we only discovered the gas oxygen about 225 years ago. We could not even begin to describe the chemistry of burning or human respiration before this], without their contribution. And this is a list which is so wide-ranging that it includes Milton, Mendel, Michaelangelo, Wesley and Wilberforce, while it omits Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Handel, and dozens of others.

The other main theme is euro `Christophobia', which is detailed in many ways, from the persecutory attitude to the Catholic Professor Rocco Buttiglione in his proposed place in the EU government, to the universal demand for tolerance which includes rather madly includes rigid intolerance of any discussion of the Christian religion or its place in influencing civic society. Altogether, this adds up to the best analysis of secularism that I have ever read.

The statement of the very obvious that is the underlying theme of the themes, is that western European civilisation was built by the Catholic church. There is more balance and a gentler tone here in the treatment of the subject, but the author is generally in line with Thomas Woods book, `How the Catholic Church built Western Civilisation'. Which is well paired with this one, before or after making little difference.

The only weakness of this book is that it understates its case. It would be easy to adduce more evidence of outright damage and incoherence of ASH in our literature alone (Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Sartre, Nietzsche, Camus), and then as a whisky chaser consider the intellectual flight from science. Professor Robin Dunbar's `The Trouble with Science', published in 1995 traces the problem in Britain back at least twenty years. And is still seen in the rapid and ongoing rejection of chemistry and physics in the school system throughout, from GCSE at 16, to university graduate, a trend which is steadily shutting down departments in these subjects as I write. My second reading of this book starts right now, and I can also see how it would help one or two of my friends, with Christmas about to hove into view. Read them and pray.
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