Liberty: the God That Failed
BY CHRISTOPHER A. FERRARA

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Book description:

What has gone wrong with the grand American experiment in “ordered liberty”? In Liberty, the God That Failed, Christopher A. Ferrara unmasks the order promised as a sham; the liberty guaranteed, a chimera.

We think you will agree that to read this book is never to think about the modern world and American history in the same way again.

In the author’s telling, the false god of a new political order—Liberty—was born in thought long before America’s founding, and gained increasing devotion as it slowly amassed power during the first century of the nation’s existence. Today it reveals its full might, as we bear the weight of its oppressive decrees, and experience the emptiness of the secular order it imposes upon us.

Ferrara destroys multiple myths constructed by the secular state and opens our eyes to harsh realities, but also to the possibilities for a rightly ordered society and the true liberty that can still be ours. As an in-depth look at political life, secular modernity, the Church’s teaching, and America’s past, there has never been another book like it.

Praise for this book:

“Un-put-down-able, a work of pure genius, and possibly the ultimate analysis of our times.”
 —James Bogle, barrister and Chairman of the Catholic Union of Great Britain

“There is no doubt of the scholarship in this comprehensive genealogy, which makes for a very impressive volume … highly readable and an intellectual landmark in Catholic ecclesiastical history.”
 —Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford

“Chris Ferrara’s book most persuasively demonstrates that negative liberty is an idol and that liberalism is the last of the ideologies; indeed he shows that it was the basic ideology hidden behind all the others.”
 —John Milbank, University of Nottingham, author of Theology and Social Theory

“An absolutely epochal achievement — one of the finest historical studies I have ever read.”
 —John Rao (D.Phil., Oxford), Associate Professor of History, St. John’s University

“I’ve hardly been able to put it down since I opened it. The narrative is compelling from beginning to end and a pleasure to read; rich in learning and insight, Liberty, the God That Failed is a tour de force.”
 —Patrick McKinley Brennan, John F. Scarpa Chair in Catholic Legal Studies, Villanova University School of Law

“A great book, with clear, forceful analysis and lots of eye-opening material!”
 —Jim Kalb, author of The Tyranny of Liberalism 

“It unearths the visceral anti-Catholicism that accompanied secularism, even in its so-called benign forms.”
 —Jeffrey J. Langan, Chairman, Program of Liberal Studies, Holy Cross College at Notre Dame

“Ferrara is a one-man army against the juggernaut of secular liberalism and the Leviathanian state, and in Liberty, the God That Failed, he has struck a decisive blow.”
 —Thaddeus Kozinski, author of The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism

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