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Family, Society, Politics: The Outline of Sanity, The End of the Armistice, Utopia of Usurers--and others (G. K. Chesterton: Collected Works, Volume 5)
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Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #492669 in Books
- Published on: 1987-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 657 pages
Customer Reviews
Rare Chesterton works once more available
This volume of Chesterton's Collected Works brings back into print The End of the Armistice, the last book GKC wrote. I have always thought this was one of his finest pieces of non-fiction. It is thoughtful and articulate, as he always was. It shows how clearly he saw Hitler and the Nazis for what they were, at a time when an embarrassing number of English and Europeans who should have known better admired Nazi Germany. Finally, it connects Chesterton's abhorrence of the Third Reich with his religious convictions, making GKC in retrospect immensely more admirable as a Roman Catholic than Pius XII. The End of the Armistice is by itself worth the price of this book.
More Brilliance from GKC
One thing for sure: GK was no fan of Prussia. Volume V of "Collected Works" contains political essays mainly dealing with events surrounding WWI. One of my favorite selections is "The Crimes of England', a candid confession of his homeland's crimes against humanity. GK lays much of the blame on Prussia, or more precisely, on England's government for cozying up to Prussia beginning with the William Pitt government around 1800. In GK's view, England should have stood with France, as inheritors of Roman/Christian values, in opposition to barbarian Prussia. Instead, England created a monster by propping up the Prussian regime, to the peril of all nations--particularly France, Poland, and Belgium. Moreover, barbaric Prussian values crept into English political and intellectual life as a result of this unholy association. English fascination with German social efficiency and scientific determinism hastened England's decline from a pastoral country to one overwhelmed by an ugly, dehumanizing urban capitalism. These are common themes in GK's writing, but I think never more fully fleshed out than here, as he traces all these developments from Pitt forward. It's a pity Chesterton does not show up more on reading lists for Western college courses in history.
