Customer Reviews:
Thought-Provoking Essays, Religious and Political..........2002-06-16
Acton is probably most known for his quote: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1804-1902) was born to a wealthy English aristocrat and become a brilliant scholar. He was Victorian England's most renowned historian and political thinker. Acton was a Roman Catholic educated under the Catholic historian Ignaz von Dollinger in Munich. Acton found the idea of Papal Infallibility to be appalling. To Acton, holding the Vatican on a pedestal as the infallible arbiter of religious and moral conscience was detrimental to the cause of liberty. Acton was a classical liberal who seems to possess the prescriptive wisdom and prudence of Edmund Burke when it comes to politics.
This collection of essays and commentary features a selection of Acton's thoughts on the interrelation between church and state, religion, politics and morality. The first section features essays on Liberal Catholicism; the second section includes Acton's commentary on the Vatican Council; and the third section features Perspectives on History, Religion and Morality. The fourth and final section features an intriguing collection of quotations on various topics like Liberty, Conscience, Church, Democracy, Federalism, Nationality, Property and Socialism to name a few. This final section makes the book very useful resource for Acton's witticisms. I don't wholeheartedly embrace all of the ideas of Acton, but this book is nonetheless an eye-openning window into European Old Whig political thought during the 19th century.
Customer Reviews:
In The Mind Of A Great Historian.......2004-07-27
Lord Acton, (1834-1902), was among the most illustrious historians of nineteenth century England. "He knew everyone worth knowing and read everything worth reading". He had a deep devotion to individual freedom and a profound understanding of history. He never published a book, which is a great shame. His enormous reputation is based on essays, notes and lectures he gave at Cambridge University as Regius professor starting in 1894. Acton's political thought came into vogue only after WWI when people tired of nationalism and started probing spirituality more. He went through life a liberal Catholic decrying the fact that he could find no one who could live up to his Catholic ethical standards. A great believer in the gift of liberty the American Revolution gave to the world and ranted against the evil destruction the French Revolution brought to the French people. "Acton explained his theory of history as essentially the history of ideas". I think quotes like that pretty much sum up the prescient genius Acton shows.
As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy, I found this book a splendid collection of essays by an eminent historian written for anyone who wants to understand the history of freedom through the ages. I also recommend Acton's "Lectures On Modern History" and Acton's "Essays on Freedom And Power"
Amazon.com
Ernest Shackleton, an undeniably brave explorer, labored under a terrible ambition for nearly two decades: the desire to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Repeatedly thwarted by the elements, then finally beaten by the Norwegian adventurer Roald Amundsen, Shackleton revised his objective in 1912. He would be the first, he decided, to complete "the crossing of the South Polar Continent, from sea to sea."
Shackleton planned to take his ship, Endurance, to the Weddell Sea and from there set out on foot across the polar plateau; he and his party would be supplied at depots set out by another exploring party. Shackleton never arrived at those depots; Endurance was crushed by sea ice, its sailors marooned for months of endless winter. Unaware of Endurance's fate, the 10-man supply party set out on the other side of the continent and discharged their duties without complaint. In the process, three of them died after crossing hundreds of miles of unforgiving, storm-blasted ice.
"Their sacrifice," writes Lennard Bickel, "became a footnote in history and was forgotten, even though Shackleton himself summed up their long agony by saying that 'no more remarkable story of human endeavour has been revealed than the tale of that long march'." Bickel's thoughtful history gives these courageous explorers their due, and it provides a valuable addition to the library of Antarctic travel. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
The drama of Shackleton's Antarctic survival story overshadowed the other expedition. Launched by the famous explorer (and led by Captain Aeneas Mackintosh), its purpose was to lay supply depots across the Great Ross Ice Shelf in preparation for the Endurance expedition. Despite completing the longest sledge journey in polar history (199 days) and enduring near unimaginable deprivation, this heroic band accomplished much of their mission, laying the way for men who never came. All suffered; some died.
Now Australian writer Lennard Bickel remembers these forgotten heroes in a gripping account that fills in a little-known and ironic piece of the Shackleton puzzle. Largely drawn from the author's interviews with team member Dick Richards, this retelling underscores the capacity of ordinary men for endurance and noble action.
Customer Reviews:
Heartbreaking and Inspiring.......2007-09-26
In all the other books I've read about Shackleton's adventures, there have been little more than passing references to the men entrusted with laying the provisions that would have sustained Shackleton's party for the second half of their intended journey across the ice. Completely cut off from the world, abandoned on the ice, those brave men struggled more than a year in horrific conditions to lay the depots that would have been the salvation of Shackleton's party. Daily, they weighed their lives against those of their comrades for whom they were preparing and the harshness of reality against the bond of their word.
With enough background and history to provide clear understanding of the parties and resources involved, the book offers a suprisingly detailed look into the lives and hearts of these valient men. I found their courage inspiring and their devotion to each other and their mission moving. Informative and touching, this book is a must read!
The heros about whom no movie has been made.......2005-08-12
Too many books and movies about Shackleton's ill-fated Endurance expidition end with Shackleton reaching South Georgia Island and returning to rescue his crew of Endurance. This book chronicles the story of the party who was to lay Shackleton's supply depots for his cross-Antarctic journey, a journey he never made. These men in many ways had an even harder task than Shackleton's party. They not only had responsibility for their own well-being, but (as far as they knew) Shackleton's as well. This book is a riviting account of their harrowing journey and what Shackleton found when he went back for THEM after rescuing his own crew. This book will make all other accounts of Shackleton's Endurance expidition seem incomplete.
The Other Side of Endurance.......2005-06-05
The other half of Ernest Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-15 started from McMurdo Sound on the Ross Sea and laid supply depots across the Ross Ice Shelf for Shackleton and his team to use as they crossed the continent from the Weddell Sea. Here as on the Endurance disaster struck at the very beginning. The Ross Sea party's ship was blown out to sea, marooning the men for two years with little more than the clothes they stood up in. Fortunately, the lavishly equipped Scott Expedition had departed in a hurry four years before and left a surprising amount of stuff behind. Hard-headed Aeneas Mackintosh and his men carried out their task despite their own precarious position, laying depots that would never be used. The cost was the lives of three men, including Captain Mackintosh himself.
The loss of the ship was something no one could have prevented, but the deaths were fundamentally due to inexperienced leadership, which ultimately went back to Shackleton, who left ambiguous orders about who would be commander: Mackintosh, captain of the ship but with only one short sledging journey to his credit, or Ernest Joyce, who had gone south with Scott on the Discovery, with Shackleton on the Nimrod, and had selected dogs for Douglas Mawson. The stubborn Mackintosh insisted that final decisions were his alone. His refusal to heed Joyce's advice led directly to the death of three-quarters of their dogs by the end of the first sledging season. The Expedition never fully recovered.
The author doesn't have the English language quite under control, particularly his verbs. "Men's legs burying deep in the drift"? I blame his copy editor.
Unbelievable endurance.......2005-01-26
Many people know of Ernest Shackleton's tragic Antartic expedition. His ship, the Endurance, becomes trapped in the ice and is eventually crushed. Shackleton and his men, make there way back to civilization through Shackleton's efforts. However, not many people know about the other group of men involved in that same expedition.
On the other side of Antartica, on the Great Ross Ice Shelf, a group of ten men sail and set up camp. Their task is to set up a number of supply depots for Shackleton's team. Once they cross the South Pole, the team would be abel to resupply at the depots established by this other team of men.
Unfortunately, their ship is lost and they are trapped. The fate of the Endurance is unknown to them and they struggle to complete there assigned tasks. It is a tale is suffering and incredible human endurance.
Amazing Story.......2003-01-15
I have not read other books about this topic first. Therefore, I did not know the outcome of Shackleton's adventure. But I did learn of the endurance of the men on the otherside waiting for Shackleton. The book gives a very personal account of the men from the ship Aurora as they trek to leave supply stores for Shackleton's crossing of Antartica. It never ceases to amaze what human's can endure for exploration.
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The Political Thought of Lord Acton
Rocco Pezzimenti
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ASIN: 0852444389 |
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- A look at us through other eyes
- The best Iowa book of the decade!
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A Brit Among the Hawkeyes
Richard Acton , and
Lord Acton Richard
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Customer Reviews:
A look at us through other eyes.......2001-01-24
Richard Lord Acton is a member of the House of Lords in London where he spends half the year, and the other half of the year he spends in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where his American wife is a professor of law. His observations of life in general, and Iowa in particular, are the basis of this book.
He looks at life in Iowa with an eye full of amazement and wonder. He talks about his difficulty driving on the wrong side of the street, but has settled that problem by driving 5 miles under the speed limit so he has a "margin to think". His favorite bookstore in the whole world is Prairie Lights in Iowa City and he tells us why. He also discusses holidays and his problem with the 4th of July.
Part of the book deals with his life in London and I learned a little about British law. Another part deals with his childhood in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). All of it was fascinating.
He obviously loves Cedar Rapids and when you read the account of his experience at the post office, you'll understand why.
He talks about his visit to the Mall of America, the movie Jurassic Park and "finding America on a Halloween hayride".
Now it would be perfect if his wife would write a "companion" book on her 6 months a year in London.
The best Iowa book of the decade!.......1998-12-11
The great Iowa historian (who, ironically, happens to be a British Lord), has produced an absolutely wonderful Iowa book. All 210 pages will amuse you and delight you. When he's not in London debating in the House of Lords and having tea with the Prime Minister, Lord Acton is a denizen of Iowa City, Iowa, spending his time in the coffee house of Prairie Lights Bookstore or researching Iowa history in the reading room of the State Historical Society Library. This research resulted in the recent Iowa State University Press book, "To Go Free: a Treasury of Iowa's Legal Heritage." But "A Brit..." is a quicker and more personal read. It's dedicated to Patricia, his wife and a University of Iowa law professor. It begins with letters to his brother, Edward, in which Lord Acton relates that Iowa, indeed, is not flat. But Richard learns a lot more about the Hawkeye State after his marriage to Patricia and his move to Cedar Rapids. He writes about his visit to "The Field of Dreams" (outside Dyserville) and he discovers the joys of the Iowa State Fair, where after a day of eating turkey drumsticks and walking through the pig barns, he develops "an acute case of Iowa State Fair sore feet." But it's not all Iowa in this book, as Lord Acton switches to London and includes essays on the joys of riding London's black taxis and relates the history of "White Curly Wigs and Black Stuff Gowns." There's also a wonderful section of the book on the author's childhood in colonial Southern Rhodesia (today's Zimbabwe), where Richard grew up with nine siblings. There's a lengthy essay on the dear family friend, the eccentric British writer, Evelyn Waugh, who would journey to Africa to visit the Acton family. From Africa, it's back to London, where Richard relates the story of the downfall of Margaret Thatcher and explains the peculiarity of "The Prime Minister's Question Time." "A Brit..." wraps up with a fine section on various matters Iowan and American, including the author's visit to "The Mall of America" and his frustration with trying to understand American's tolerance of "non-dairy creamer." He delves into the origin of the state's nickname, Hawkeyes, discusses the state's first Thanksgiving and tells the story of the infamous "Cherry Sisters," who took vaudeville to a new low in the early 20th century. And no Iowa historican has gone to such effort to relate the story of Bonnie and Clyde's several forays into the state (although they met their end in Louisiana). There's also an essay in the book about the surreal (and true) story of the mysterious Opal Whiteley, who was the child of an Oregon lumbercamp family, but believed she was Princess Francoise d'Orleans. And for those who may believe the author is the one who came up with the phrase "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," there's an essay in which Lord Acton explains that the words actually came from his great-grandfather, the first Lord Acton, who uttered the famous phrase on April 5, 1887. The book includes a marvelous cover drawing by Iowa City artist Wiley (another parody of Grant Wood's "American Gothic"), the creator of the nationally syndicated cartoon "Non Sequitur." For Iowans, ex-Iowans, British citizens, or anybody else, for that matter, Lord Acton's new book is a fun read and a great way to learn some history in the process. The book is a true joy all the way through.
Dennis Reese Iowa Public Radio, WSUI-KSUI
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- on the nature of history
- Good study;questionable subject
- A Master who never produced a masterpiece
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Lord Acton
Roland Hill
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Selected Writings of Lord Acton: Essays in Religion, Politics, and Morality (Selected Writings of Lord Acton)
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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
ASIN: 0300079567 |
Book Description
This is the first full-length biography of this remarkable man, making full use of archival and published materials about him. Placing Acton in the context of Catholic politics in Britain (which made him something of an outsider), it offers a wonderful life-and-times picture. Acton was born at Naples in 1834 and died at Tegernsee in Germany in 1902. Roland Hill's book covers Acton's upbringing and education in Italy, France, England, and Germany, his activities as Member of Parliament, his work as editor and owner of Liberal Catholic journals, his opposition to the doctrine of papal infallibility at the Vatican Council of 1869 to 1870, and his lifelong preoccupation with the history of freedom. Through his friendship with Prime Minister Gladstone, Acton was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, where he transformed historical study and planned the Cambridge Modern History series. The enigmatic Acton was of course held in the highest esteem for his great learning and ideas on politics, religion, and the development of institutions and views fostering human freedom. Knocking Acton as a pompous Victorian has been a pastime of a new generation of young British historians. This approach is to try and understand the enigmatic personality in its personal, emotional, and intellectual pre-occupations and to get thus at the man and his ideas.
Customer Reviews:
on the nature of history.......2006-01-05
For the great British historian, Lord Acton (1834-1902), study of the great books of the ages was essential in bringing a person to full intellectual and spiritual maturity. Such study was good for a man because it functioned..."to open windows in every direction, to raise him to the level of his age, so that he may know the twenty or thirty forces that have made our world what it is, and still reign over it; to guard him against surprises, and against the constant sources of error within; to supply him both with the strongest stimulants and the surest guides; to give force and fullness and clearness and sincerity and independence and elevation and generosity and serenity to his mind, that he may know the method and law of the process by which error is conquered and truth is won: discerning knowledge from probability and prejudice from belief; that he may learn to master what he rejects as fully as what he adopts; that he may understand the origin as well as the strength and vitality of systems and the better motives of men who are wrong; to steel him against the charm of literary ability and talent, so that each book, thoroughly taken in shall be the beginning of a new life and shall make a new man of him". Lord Acton; quoted in Hill, p 285-286.
This man, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton -- Lord Acton of Aldenham - amassed a library at his Aldenham estate of well over 60,000 books and manuscripts! He also had many tens of thousands of other books at his other homes scattered across England and the continent. And he had read and studied many and perhaps most of them! This was a man who read, and read, as they say, voraciously! He was interested primarily in one big question: What was the relation of political order to religiousness and religion? He is worth reading (though he wrote few books himself) because he grappled so honestly with this huge question and because he came to solid insights that might yet help us today.
Acton was born in Naples, Italy on January 10, 1834. His grandfather, served as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Naples while his father Sir Richard Acton, died when Acton was only three years old. His mother, Countess Marie Louise de Dalberg (from an ancient and distinguished Catholic family of Bavaria), remarried later to Lord Granville, William Gladstone's Foreign Secretary, and then moved the family to Britain. Thus Acton received his early schooling in Britain and grew up fluent in English, German, French, and Italian.
Barred from attending Cambridge University because of his Catholicism, his devout (Catholic) mother sent him to study at the University of Munich under the famous church historian, Ignaz von Döllinger. The close mentoring he received from Dollinger was a decisive experience for the young Acton. Through Döllinger's mentorship Acton discovered his own vocation to become a historian of church and state and to study the more fundamental link between liberty and religiousness.
As he neared the end of his university studies, his stepfather Lord Granville cajoled and sponsored him to stand for Parliament. He did so and won election in 1859 to the House of Commons representing the Irish constituency of Carlow. He did much like politics and did not distinguish himself in any particular way while in Parliament. On the other hand he met and became a lifelong friend of William Ewart Gladstone: the Liberal politician (thrice Prime Minister of England) who dominated Victorian politics for almost a half century. Thus Acton via his 40+ years of close friendship with Gladstone was never far from questions of practical politics. In 1869, Gladstone rewarded Acton for his efforts on behalf of Liberal political causes by offering him a peerage and a seat in the House of Lords. As we will see below Gladstone did this favor for Acton for other reasons as well...in particular to strengthen Acton's hand in his struggles at the First Vatican Council.
As a young man however Acton was more interested in editing a journal of ideas than in distinguishing himself as a parliamentarian. He left parliament and subsequently launched a series of journals (such as the "The Rambler", and the Historical Review...) giving them each a distinctly Catholic character and dedicating each to an analysis of social, political, and theological issues from a Catholic point of view. He became acquainted with the great convert John Henry Newman who supported Acton's journalistic efforts and contributed to some of these journalistic efforts. Around this time he made a trip to America and met among others the great Catholic convert and philosopher Orestes Brownson. On his return to Britain he soon evidenced a profound admiration for the American revolution; seeing in it a great advance for liberty; praising in particular the Federalist papers, the balanced Constitution and the overall federal arrangement of power. Although he opposed slavery his sympathies ran more powerfully with the South as the South's cause was bound up with the preservation of states rights in opposition to a centralizing Federal government. He apparently believed that slavery could be ended (as it had in Brazil) by the North offering to Southern slaves a sanctuary of freedom. The slaves would then simply desert to the North and all would be well! In this Acton was naïve as conditions in America were fundamentally different than in Brazil...(as Acton the historian and the Catholic should have realized). In Brazil there was a Catholic (missionary) legacy of defense of native's and slaves rights while in the British-American colonies there was no strong missionizing tradition-no particular interest in the souls of slaves or Indians (they were not considered rational human beings by most protestant divines) except as labor to be exploited in the case of Black slaves or or as enemies to be displaced from their lands in the case of the Indians. The Quakers (and Eliot in Massachusetts) were the exception that proved the rule and except in Pennsylvannia were not in any case a strong national political force. Abolitionism in America achieved no political prominence until the 1840s. Thus the Slave power in the South was politically strong and able to get Congress to pass the Fugitive Slave act which required Northern states to return fugitive slaves to the South and their `owners' thereby precluding a `Barzilian solution' to the slavery problem. Acton also underestimated the almost limitless stupidity of the Southern slaveowners-they intransigently refused to limit the growth of slavery in any wise and in any of the new terroritories thus pushing the Northerners into increasingly extreme positions themselves. All this despite the original Constitutional compromise among the Northern and Southern Founding fathers which put a limit to slavery's growth in the new Republic. On the other hand Acton was right to point out that the North's aggressiveness centered around its attempts to build up the federal power in order to eliminate southern economic competition and to dominate international trade. Acton also rightly saw the genius, the nobility and the tragedy of the figure of Robert E. Lee. He wrote to him a letter of sympathy and praise (after the surrender at Appomotax) that Lee apparently treasured till the end of his days.
By the time of the American Civil War, Acton began to arrive at positions increasingly at odds with the Church hierarchy-in particular on the question of the temporal power of the papacy (which was in process of losing the territories called the papal states to Italian nationalism) and then with respect to the question of papal infallibility. Seeing the inevitability of being silenced by the hierarchy he chose to fold his journalistic operations. When the First Vatican Council was called (1869-1870) to discuss the issues of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and of Papal Infallability Acton moved himself and his new family (he had married and started to have children) to Rome where he became one of the leaders (along with Cardinals/Bishops Strossmayer, Darboy and Dupanloup) of the opposition (to infallibility). Interestingly, as mentioned above Gladstone made him at this time a Peer of the Realm (conferring on Acton a semi-official diplomatic status) in order to strengthen his hand in dealing with the Cardinals and Bishops. He regularly sent long letters on debates of the Council to Dollinger who then forwarded them to the World Press. These letters later became priceless documents for historians of the Council.
Through his principled, diplomatic and passionate opposition to Papal infallability Acton became known in Britain as one of the most articulate defenders of religious and political freedom. He saw no inherent contradiction between religion and political liberty. He also argued forcefully in essays and lectures that freedom of conscience was the bedrock of political liberty and that conscience had to be understood in the Catholic sense as not truly free until it was informed by revelation as embodied in holy writ, religious tradition and in the sacraments.
In the 1880s and 90s he began to develop what can only be described as a philosophy of history. Religion and liberty were at the core of the historical process with the gradual realization of individual and political liberty constituting the meaning and purpose of history. Given that political liberty depended on the vigilance and participation of free individuals who could and did consult their conscience on matters political, liberty itself depended on religiosity. Acton was fiercely critical of any historian who tended to whitewash the crimes of the church. There could be no excuses for St Bartolomew's massacre or for the persecution or the Jews or Muslims or for the tortures perpetrated by the Inquistion. He believed that there had been a plot sanctioned by the Pope to murder Elizabeth I and he excorciated any historian who questioned the historicity of the charges. At one point he was asked to review a three volume history of the Popes and when he absolutely panned the book he penned a letter to the author that contained the now famous line: that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Despite his run-ins with the hierarchy Acton apparently was a devout man. He recited the Jesus Psalter every Friday night all his life. The Jesus Psalter was, like the rosary, made up of 150 repetitive petitions/prayers in 15 groupings -except the petitions were to the Holy Name of Jesus. It was a staple of English Catholic piety throughout the years of protestant persecution. The great Catholic aristocratic families preserved it for hundreds of years despite fierce persecution by the fanatics in charge of England. Acton was also devoted to Thomas a Kempis' `Imitation of Christ' calling it the `most perfect expression of Catholic thought" (quoted in Hill, p. 405). In 1895, Lord Acton was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. He lectured on the French Revolution (apparently some survivors of the carnage attended these lectures and listened in tears to Acton's vivid descriptions of the terror) and talked of writing his universal history of development of Liberty and freedom. He argued that the historian had an obligation to make moral judgments on history, -that morality was central to understanding the significance of historical events. After the Gulag and the Holocaust few modern historians would dispute Acton's position here. Acton died in 1902, never finishing his universal history.
Hill's biography of this extraordinary man draws extensively on Acton's letter to various correspondents (he was an inveterate letter writer) is filled with interesting anecdotes about Acton and his family while simultaneously giving us a portrait of Acton's intellectual development across a whole lifetime. We also get an in-depth view of Acton's long friendships with Gladstone and with Dollinger...all in all a great biography.
Good study;questionable subject.......2001-02-11
Lord Acton (1834-1902), usually regarded as one of the most eminent Victorians, has largely eluded thorough analysis because of the formidable problems facing the biographer. Any definitive study must involve examination of the vast pile of Acton miscellany gathered at the Cambridge University Library, travel to several European archives (and concomitant facility in French, German and Italian) and an understanding of some fairly arcane problems of 19th century Catholic dogma. Roland Hill contends successfully with all these factors in this excellent study.
Still, students of Church history, or of 19th century Britain may well wonder if Hill's efforts were justified. Acton was born into the English Catholic aristocracy; he had all the advantages of social standing, money (for most of his life), connections and education. Yet, he failed to capitalize on any of these factors to leave a lasting mark on his age.
As a Catholic polemicist, Acton mounted campaigns against the temporal power of the Pope and the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, topics of little interest during the last 150 years. A man of undeniable erudition and learning, Acton assembled an immense private library and conducted research in dozens of Continental archives, but never published a book. A member of Parliament, Acton spoke only three times in the House in more than six years. Although appointed Regius Professor of History at Cambridge (1895), he neither started nor influenced any school of historians and his participation in the "Cambridge Modern History" was too short-lived to have had any effect. As a fairly close friend of Gladstone, Acton might have had some influence on the policies of the great Prime Minister, but if he did, even Hill's assiduous research has failed to disclose any direct link between Acton's ideas and Gladstone's actions.
Even after a careful and charitable reading, it is difficult to agree with Hill's assessment that "it is not paradoxical to admire [Acton] for books he never wrote or for what he tried to do rather than for what he succeeded in achieving." (p. 410). One can, though, admire Hill's thorough, careful and thoughtful study, and still conclude that his talents as a biographer would have been better expended on a more suitable subject.
A Master who never produced a masterpiece.......2000-09-07
This is the first major biography of Lord Acton since mid-century. This remarkable historian, Catholic dissident, and philosopher of freedom was in many ways the very epitome of the erudite Victorian scholar. That is, he was _so_ learned, that the present-day reader should distrust any reviewer, including the present one, who presumes to encapsulate and classify him in a few easy paragraphs.
There's little danger of that from me. This book tells the story of Acton's life and career, and I must admit that, so far as judging the work of author and subject, my hat's simply off to them. It is interesting reading about things like Acton's near-excommunication from the Catholic Church, because of his opposition in 1870 to the new doctrine of papal infallibility, and then his continued devotion to the Church. His private correspondence with contemporaries, debating the great issues of the day, particulary freedom, make for bracing reading.
His ideas in private circulation, rather than his parliamentary career or written output, carry his fame today. His magnum opus, _History of Liberty_, was never written. The only bits of it that made it to completion were two lectures, "The History of Freedom in Antiquity", and "The History of Freedom in Christianity." Disappointingly, these and a couple of other short writings are only excerpted here--they are brief enough to have been put in an appendix of this big book. Fortunately, they can be read at the Acton Institute's website.
By the way, it was Acton who coined the phrase, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
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Selected Writings Of Lord Acton (3 Volume Set)
John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
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- Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market
- Eyes of Prey
- Barcelona the Great Enchantress
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Selected Writings of Lord Acton: Essays in the History of Liberty (Selected Writings of Lord Acton)
Essays in the Study and Writing of History (Selected Writings of Lord Acton, Vol 2)
Essays in the History of Liberty (Selected Writings of Lord Acton)
Selected Writings of Lord Acton: Essays in the Study and Writing of History Volume 2 (Selected Writings of Lord Acton)
Lord Acton
