"Four Cultures of the West" would make an excellent text for an
interdisciplinary seminar on Western civilization, but the
non-academic reader can enjoy and profit from it as well.--Darrell
Turner"National Catholic Reporter" (04/08/2005)
In this erudite work of cultural history, O'Malley extends 'an
invitation to consider and notice' four distinctive paradigms or
cultures that, taken together, handsomely help decode Western
intellectual and cultural history. These four paradigms are the
prophetic, the academic, the humanistic, and the culture of art and
performance...O'Malley successfully showcases the affinities
between historic cultures (e.g., the Greco-Roman) and persons
(e.g., Aristotle, Aquinas, and Luther) and cultural realties in our
own time (e.g., the contemplative rhetoric of Lincoln at Gettysburg
prefiguring the rhetorical contemplation at Ground Zero).--Sandra
Collins"Library Journal" (08/01/2004)
O'Malley has given us a readable book with very wide learning in
four cultures...This book will be of interest to and accessible to
anyone interested in the cultural life of the West. At a time when
the Christian origins of our culture, which in reality are so
fundamental, are ignored, it offers a very valuable reminder and
corrective.--Richard Harries"Times Higher Education Supplement"
(08/19/2005)
O'Malley's book is helpful in gaining a better understanding of the
intellectual underpinnings of what we call the "student-centered"
approach. This is one reason why the book will be of interest to
educators. Lucid, yet at the same time rich in history, it will be
attractive to students and teachers of world cultures in many
different disciplines.--Dr. Dovile Budryte "Bridges "
This sweeping survey of Western cultural history, by John W.
O'Malley, S.J., ought to be required reading for--among
others--literary and philosophical [unbelievers]: postmodernists,
New Agers, Generation-Xers and college students everywhere. It's a
clear cogent survey of the cultural roots we all have, willy-nilly,
consciously or otherwise...In all this Father O'Malley makes an
illuminating guide. His relaxed, agreeable prose (a blend of
cultures two and three) should attract a wide spectrum of
readers.--Peter Heinegg"America" (12/20/2004)
This wise and elegant little survey of western Christian culture
began life as the first Blessed Pope John XXIII lecture series at
the University of Notre Dame, and it is a fine example of rhetoric
in the best sense: an explicit exercise in epideictic, sorting out
praise and blame.--Diarmaid MacCulloch "Ecclesiastical History
"
cultures two and three) should attract a wide spectrum of
readers.
origins of our culture, which in reality are so fundamental, are
ignored, it offers a very valuable reminder and corrective.
sense: an explicit exercise in epideictic, sorting out praise and
blame.
Aristotle, Aquinas, and Luther) and cultural realties in our own
time (e.g., the contemplative rhetoric of Lincoln at Gettysburg
prefiguring the rhetorical contemplation at Ground Zero).
Lucid, yet at the same time rich in history, it will be attractive
to students and teachers of world cultures in many different
disciplines.
O'Malley...offers a warm and conversational invitation to reflect
on four cultural configurations that feed into contemporary
consciousness...What does human culture have to do with the culture
of spiritual transcendence? His book, primarily concerned with the
manifestations of these various cultures in the history of
Christianity, spurs the reader on to meditate on the different
streams that jostle, but sometimes converge, in an 'ocean' we all
navigate.
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