This document provides a summary of the book "A Nation So Conceived: Reflections on the History of America from Its Early Visions to Its Present Power" by Reinhold Niebuhr and Alan Heimert. The summary discusses how the book analyzes the American character by tracing how original endowments were transmuted or created tensions with early visions under three categories: pursuing national unity amid diversity, developing into an industrial power from agrarian roots, and contrasting dreams of youth with realities of present power and responsibility. The book explores America's uniqueness through its history in light of revolutionary ideals.
This document provides a summary of the book "A Nation So Conceived: Reflections on the History of America from Its Early Visions to Its Present Power" by Reinhold Niebuhr and Alan Heimert. The summary discusses how the book analyzes the American character by tracing how original endowments were transmuted or created tensions with early visions under three categories: pursuing national unity amid diversity, developing into an industrial power from agrarian roots, and contrasting dreams of youth with realities of present power and responsibility. The book explores America's uniqueness through its history in light of revolutionary ideals.
This document provides a summary of the book "A Nation So Conceived: Reflections on the History of America from Its Early Visions to Its Present Power" by Reinhold Niebuhr and Alan Heimert. The summary discusses how the book analyzes the American character by tracing how original endowments were transmuted or created tensions with early visions under three categories: pursuing national unity amid diversity, developing into an industrial power from agrarian roots, and contrasting dreams of youth with realities of present power and responsibility. The book explores America's uniqueness through its history in light of revolutionary ideals.
This document provides a summary of the book "A Nation So Conceived: Reflections on the History of America from Its Early Visions to Its Present Power" by Reinhold Niebuhr and Alan Heimert. The summary discusses how the book analyzes the American character by tracing how original endowments were transmuted or created tensions with early visions under three categories: pursuing national unity amid diversity, developing into an industrial power from agrarian roots, and contrasting dreams of youth with realities of present power and responsibility. The book explores America's uniqueness through its history in light of revolutionary ideals.
ized reIigion is a matter for women and young children," he explains : "The depth of this feeling can perhaps best be gauged from the fact that clerical concubinage (which is probably n o t a s frequent as elsewhere in Latin America) is frowned upon by Catholics, but is one of the few ways in which Cuban priests can hope to earn a modicum of respect from other Cuban men." Such quotations should suttice to show that the author is not disposed to pull punches when dealing with delicate subjects that many Catholic writers gloss over or choose to ignore completely.
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Professor Dewart is critical of the Cuban policy of the United States; and he declares that the "unconditional anti-communism of the Cuban Church" was one of the major factors in causing Castro to align himself with Moscow. In reaching this conclusion the author does not ignore the early pro-Castro attitude of most Catholic laymen and some of the clergy; however, he points out that Catholic support was withdrawn following the overthrow of Batista when many Catholics became alarmed by the revolutionary regime's sweeping land reform progmm, its policy of "neu- tralism" in regard to the international power struggle involving the United States and the Soviet Union, and Castro's refusal to take a public stand against communism. Professor Dewart feels that the Cuban hierarchy erred in failing to make greater efforts to come to terms with Castro; and he charges that the laymen of Cuba, and particularly the Catholic intel- lectuals of that country, did little of nothing to change the course of events that have led to the triumph of Marxism and the continued decline of Christian influence within the country. Only time, continued research, and future political developments will reveal the full signficance of this book. For the present it would seem that the real value of the volume lies in the stimulation which it will provide for students of the Cuban scene who ate seeking a work that is neither ah anti-Castro polemic n o r a piece of pro-Castro propaganda. As for the author's approach to the subject of church-state relations, he has summed it up in the assertion that "cooperation, even close and intimate, is desirable and possible between State and Church."
Lyle C. Brown
Political Thou9ht in Sixteenth-Century Spain. By Bernice Hamilton. Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1963. 201 pp.
There are two main ways in which to proceed in exploring political or
other philosophies of a given historical period. The first approach calls BOOK REVIEWS 103
for a successive examination of the respective teachings of each of the
leading thinkers of the period. The second approach dwells on the major ideas representative of the philosophy of the period and shows what each of the leading thinkers had to say about each of the ideas. The author of the volume under review has adopted the second approach. Rather than discussing individually and separately the four outstanding Spanish theo- logians-philosophers whom she has selected for her study--Francisco Vitoria, Francisco Suarez, Domingo de Soto, and Luis de Molina--Miss
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Hamilton has organized the entire volume around the several major philosophical concepts with which all four had been concerned. Since she considers the Thomist hierarchy of laws, and in particular the Thomist concept of natural law, as forming the framework for the four theologians' discussion of politics, she devotes the first chapter to an ex- position of their naturaMaw theories. In the following two chapters she examines the implications which such theories had for their views of the political community, its laws, and the position of the ruler. She analyses, in particular, their "theory of kingship" and shows how the Spanish theolog- ians sought to avoid the two extremes of absolute divine right of the king and popular sovereignty by ho!ding that, when selecting its ruler, the com- munity transfers its own God-given authority to him, so that the king's power does come from God, but only "mediately" through the people. The author then proceeds in Chapter Four to the teaching of the four theologians, mainly Vitoria and Suarez, on church-state relations. While adhering to the concept of the superiority of spiritual power over the temporal and supporting the papal right of intervention in secular affairs ir and when it becomes essential for spi¡ purposes, they argued never- theless against the view that temporal power was derived from the spiritual power, conceded that an unjust papal excommunication or dispensation was not binding, and denied the papal right to replace a monarch who had lost his throne for schism. The remaining three chapters deal with the attitudes on certain inter- national aspects of politics, namely, the law of nations, war and its laws, and the Spanish colonization of the New World. While rejecting the recent attempts to portray the Spanish theologians as founders of inter- national law, Miss Hamilton gives them due credit for their substantial interest in legal relations among nations, their beliefs in the existence and binding character of international law, their elaboration of the concept of self-defense as a natural and necessary right, their differentiation between just and unjust wars and their insistence on the duty to seek peaeeful settlement of disputes before resorting to the force of arms. The chapter on the colonization of the New World throws an interesting light on the dilemma dropped into the lap of the four theologians by their country's 104 CHURCH AND STATE
colonial conquests. In substance, they approved the right to use coercion
to convert the natives to the Christian faith, but questioned it on the ground of expediency. Appended to the volume are short biographies of the four theologians, a bibliography of works by them and about them, and an index. It is a solidly documented and well-written book, although its readability is somewhat impaired by the author's penchant for interspersing the text with lar too many quotations.
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Edward Taborsky
A Nation So Conceived: Reflections on the History o] America from Its
Early Visions to Its Present Power. By Reinhold Niebuhr and Alan Heimert. 155 pp. $3.50.
Reinhold Niebuhr and Alan Heimert, combining their talents for the first time, conducta brief but dynamic exploration into the uniqueness of America history in the light of the messianic conceptions o~ our Revolutionary and pre-Revolutionary forefathers. The authors affirm that the American character, shaped by the original endowment of a virgin continent and an essentially Anglo-Saxon cultttre and race, forged the unique national trait of expressing a vital impulse in the name of an ideal. Niebuhr and Heimert, displaying a thorough grasp of historical patterns and giving a wealth of examples, analyze the American character by tracing the forces which either transmuted these original endowments of created a tnsion with the original vision. The authors do this under three categories of nationaI experience. First, they trace the quest for national unity and idenfity--a quest beset by con¡ due to ethnic pluralism, the centripetal forces of sectionalism and regionalism, the encounter with the religio-cultural diversity of European immigrants, and the expansion on a virgin continent. Second, they review the development of a highly industrialized nation from its early agrarianism. They indicate that this rapid rise created a unique tension between Amer- ica's original self-image and the force of historical destiny. AmerŸ as a modern industrial power still retains longings for its original agrarian simplicity. Third, the authors note the contrast between the nation's dreams of youth and the reality of its present power and responsibility. The re- sponsibility of present power sharply contrasts with America's original sense of mission--"its messianic or quasi-messianic consciousness of being the initiator and bearer of the principle of constitutional democracy." This
