Puritan's Empire
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A Catholic Perspective on American History
History is the key to understanding men-whether as nations, families, or individuals. For Catholics, history has an even higher purpose beside. For them, history is the unfolding of God's Will in time, and the attempts of men either to conform themselves to or to resist that Will.
But American Catholic historians have generally refrained from exploring their own national history with these principles, preferring instead to adopt the analysis of their non-Catholic colleagues, save when looking at purely Catholic topics (and sometimes not then). It is vital then, for Catholics, especially young Catholics, to have a good and proper understanding of their country's history. To exercise their patriotism, they must work for the conversion of the United States; to do this effectively, they must understand the forces and events which brought forth not only the religion of Americanism and the country itself, but also the sort of Catholicism which, in 300 years, failed so dismally to bring this conversion about.
This book attempts to reinterpret the better known episodes of our history in accordance with the Faith, and to point up lesser-known details which will give factual proof of the truth of this reinterpretation.
The combination of Puritanism, blind optimism, and materialism... would produce a people infinitely manipulable; any leader who knew how to push the right buttons would get majority support no matter what he stood for, or how much of remaining popular freedom would be eroded.
We have come to accept the notion that, so long as the government is "nice", it has a right to all the power necessary to run the country. The idea that a people might run themselves has become foreign.
But where a King is an individual, and may be held accountable for his wielding of God's authority, the people are too numerous to be responsible for anything. Further, since their desires rather than God's are to be the standard against which all must be judged, anything the majority appears to wish must be good.
"One of the most exceptional and relevant books produced in this century." - Laramie Hirsch, The Hirsch Files
"The book can help us make America Catholic again." - Gary Potter, Catholicism.org
"Coulombe's Puritan's Empire may be as valuable a consideration of American history, as that history as yet produced." - Richard Cowden Guido, author of John Paul II & the Battle for Vatican II
"Puritan's Empire will help you to better see yourself, and your duty, as a Catholic American." - Sherry Foster, The Remnant Newspaper
"I believe that this book is the definitive, formative, impactful work of history that American Catholics have needed for a very long time. " - Stefanie Nicholas