These translations present the views of Don Juan Donoso Cortes (1809-1853), a Spanish politician, diplomat, and thinker, who rose to European prominence as one of the most accurate if idiosyncratic diagnosticians of the age following the French Revolution, to him a parody of Christianity. His apocalyptic vision provides an insightful diagnosis of our own time, as well as his own, and lifts his prophetic insight to the level of contemporaries such as Tocqueville and Burckhardt. Stressing the religious as the foundational realm of existence, he brought to light the inner contradictions of modernity which are reflected in Socialism and Liberalism.
"Into the tempests of the Nineteenth Century, Juan Donoso Cortes rode as knight-errant, prophet, and Man of the West. Soberly realistic about his own time, but passionately idealistic about eternity, Donoso's writings can serve to correct our own distorted vision, both of his age and of human nature. Professor Herrera, a faithful heir and distinguished interpreter of Hispanidad, has done another great service in making these letters and essays available in English."
—Christopher O. Blum, Thomas More College
R. A. Herrera was educated in the USA, Spain, and Cuba. He received his Ph.D. from the New School under Hans Jonas, and has taught at the New School, Baruch College of CUNY, Rutgers, and Seton Hall. Professor Herrera has lectured extensively in the USA and Europe, including stints at the Consejo Superior (Madrid) and the Katholischen Akademie (Vienna). He has authored over forty articles and seven books including: Lamps of Fire, Reasons for Our Rhymes, Orestes Brownson: Sign of Contradiction, and Silent Music: Life, and Work and Thought of St. John of the Cross.
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