Houghton Mifflin, 2002-07-01. Hardcover. Very Good. Signed. [Association copy, inscribed by Garry Wills on front end and title pages.] Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Shelf wear. Clean, unmarked pages. *Autographed by author.* <br> "Garry Wills is an American historian, journalist, and author of provocative books on Roman Catholicism, history, and politics. Wills taught classics and humanities at Johns Hopkins University beginning in 1962 and continued to publish, with his first book on Catholicism, Politics and Catholic Freedom, appearing in 1964. Wills' experience covering seminal civil rights and Vietnam War protest events for Esquire throughout the 1960s, including the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., helped to steer Wills' conservative politics on these issues in a more liberal direction, and he parted ways with the National Review. In his first book on a U.S. president, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970), Wills proposed that Richard Nixon was a liberal, contrary to the Republican president's public image and analyzed the troubled relationship between the president and the country. Many critics saw the book as a criticism not only of Nixon but of the United States itself. Wills continued to publish on Catholic thought, including Bare Ruined Choirs: Doubt, Prophecy, and Radical Religion (1972), and won several awards, among them the National Book Critics Circle Award, for his controversial reconsideration of the basis for Thomas Jefferson's political thought, Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (1978). He received a Peabody Award for writing and directing the PBS Frontline documentary The Choice, an in-depth look at the 1988 presidential campaign, and a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award for his book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1992), a study of the enduring power and influence of Abraham Lincoln's prose." - Britannica

Synopsis

In this provocative work, which could not be timelier, Garry Wills, one of our country's most noted writers and historians, offers a powerful statement of his Catholic faith. Beginning with a reflection on his early experience of that faith as a child and later as a Jesuit seminarian, Wills reveals the importance of Catholicism in his own life. He goes on to challenge, in clear and forceful terms, the claim that criticism or reform of the papacy is an assault on the faith itself. For Wills, a Catholic can be both loyal and critical, a loving child who stays with his father even if the parent is wrong. Wills turns outward from his personal experiences to present a sweeping narrative covering two thousand years of church history, revealing that the papacy, far from being an unchanging institution, has been transformed dramatically over the millennia -- and can be reimagined in the future. At a time when the church faces one of its most difficult crises, Garry Wills offers an important and compelling entrée into the discussion of the church's past -- and its future. Intellectually brisk and spiritually moving, Why I Am a Catholic poses urgent questions for Catholic and non-Catholic readers alike.

Reviews

On Dec 23 2014, The Old Library Bookshop said:

Two-hundred pages into this 300+-page book, I was still wondering why Mr. Wills--indeed, why I--remains a Catholic. Wills's area of expertise seems to be the history of the papacy. He romps through two thousand years of church history outlining all the shameful details of abuses and failures of those charged with tending the faithful. It is only in the last 50-page section of the book, when Wills's focus turns to the Apostles' Creed that the clouds start to part and a faithful Catholic begins to be reassured. With frequent quotes from Augustine, William F. Buckley, and G.K. Chesterton to bolster his liberal Catholic viewpoint, Wills succeeds in explaining why he (and, likewise, so many Catholics) are still committed to the Church despite its historic flaws.

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Details

Bookseller: SequiturBooks (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #: 2104120025
Title: Why I Am a Catholic (Signed)
Author: Wills, Garry
Format/Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Used - Very Good
Quantity Available: 1
ISBN 10: 0618134298
ISBN 13: 9780618134298
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Place of Publication: Wilmington, Massachusetts, U.s.a.
Date Published: 2002-07-01
X weight: 30 oz

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