The Catholic Church in the United States in 1776 was so tiny that it didn’t play a major role in the American Revolution—but the war affected the local church in important and lasting ways.
History
Posted inBooks
Review: A counternarrative to American religious history
Matthew Sutton’s ‘Chosen Land’ addresses American religious history as one of a luxurious pluralism—but he often crosses the line into a perhaps-overdone editorial voice that grates on the reader.
Posted inBooks
Review: Going nuclear—or not
Two new books—’Return to Fukushima’ and ‘Nuclear Is Not The Solution’—lay out the perils and ugly history of nuclear power.
Posted inPodcasts
Pope Leo and Trump aren’t the first feuding leaders: a history of papal power clashes
This week on “Jesuitical,” hosts Zac Davis and Ashley McKinless talk with historian Miles Pattenden about the long and quirky history of feuds between popes and politicians.
Posted inShort Take
Trump’s celebrations of America at 250 add up to a false unity. St. Augustine shows a different way.
National unity based on the exclusion or oppression of certain groups is inherently divisive. It obscures the complexity of our history and culture.
Posted inDispatches
500 years later, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico still stirs controversy on both sides of the Atlantic
While many Mexicans consider Cortés a rapacious historical villain, Hispanophiles, both in Spain and across the Americas, lionize him for bringing Catholicism and Spanish culture to Mesoamerica.
Posted inNews
Nuns, fashion and Broadway: A theater professor’s unlikely quest to preserve the history of the Sisters of Charity of New York
Professor Darrin Pufall Purdy found elegance and mystery looking at photos of the long black garments while creating costumes for a production at Boise State University.
Posted inBooks
Bob Dylan and the Beatles: New book captures how music changes its makers
The musical and personal lives of Bob Dylan and the Beatles were intertwined in myriad ways, as author Jim Windolf teases out in his pleasurable new book, ‘Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other—and the World.’
Posted inCatholic Book Club
Bob Dylan at 85: Forever young?
Bob Dylan will be 85 this week. While ‘America’ didn’t always offer him the coverage he deserved, many of our writers have found much to love in his music and other artistic works.
Posted inBooks
Review: Mario Vargas Llosa’s final book approaches the question of nationhood
His final work, published now for the first time in English, Mario Varvas Lloisa approaches the question of nationhood not in the abstract terms of a sociologist or philosopher, but obliquely, through a kind of literary ventriloquism, in a hybrid form combining the novel and essay.