[Rockingham]

When I was younger, my temperament as well tended toward melancholy; but over time, I have seen many of the fears and hopes of the world proved illusory. Except for some circumstances of our own lives, things will proceed with little regard or note of what we individually think, believe, and do. It seems far better to me to offer no sadness to the world but to reserve it solely for the people we know and care about.

[kjvail]

Jacks last post well illustrates the problem - dueling conceptions of history. We live in a world of revolutionary governments, whose legitimacy depends on a distortion of history

There was a really good piece on this last year on Seattle Catholic, Lose the Past, Lose the Present by Dr. John C. Rao.

We must defend the truth of history at every opportunity, we are now 20 generations into this revolution, it would be so easy for the truth to be lost in the maze of revolutionary propoganda and mythology.

Everyone who cares to should study this history so as to be able to defend it well

Some starting points

Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church: A 2,000-Year History

a 500 page summary, very good overview but light on details of course

For more detailed treatment of Western history, two authors are critical:

Hilaire Belloc

The Path To Rome (1902)

Marie Antoinette (1909)

The French Revolution (1911)

The Party System (1911)

The Servile State (1912)

History of England (1915)

Europe And The Faith (1920)

Do We Agree?: A Debate Between G. K. Chesterton And Bernard Shaw, with Hilaire Belloc in the Chair (1928) (with G K Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw) aka Do We Agree?: A Debate

James II (1928)

Wolsey (1930)

Richlieu (1930)

Cranmer (1931)

Napoleon (1932)

Oliver Cromwell (1934)

Milton (1935)

Characters Of The Reformation (1936)

The Restoration Of Property (1936)

The Crisis Of Our Civilisation (1937)

Distributist Perspectives: Essays On Economics of Justice And Charity (2004) (with G K Chesterton and Harold Robbins)

Christopher Dawson

His bibliography I'll just link because it's huge. Dawson is the foremost Catholic historian of the last 500 years, his work can be the foundation of a lifetime of historical studies.

There are a number of lectures you can listen to from Intercollegiate Studies Institute on his work. Unfortunately their lecture search applet seems to be down at the moment, when I do a search I just get an error. You can browse their entire library of lectures here They have 171 lectures in audio, video and/or text formats, some really great stuff in there

Ahh ,I found some of critical import Christopher Dawson and the Rise and Fall of Christendom also The Thought of Christopher Dawson and Christopher Dawson's Historical Philosophy

(you'll need Realplayer to listen)