Podcasts about Thomas More

Send us a textA special gathering of Bethany College football legends spans two decades of program history in this nostalgic and often hilarious reunion episode. Former players and coaches from the early 2000's through 2021 come together to share the untold stories that defined their college football experience at this small but mighty program.The conversation quickly reveals the deep connections formed through shared hardships and triumphs. Program-defining victories take center stage as Coach Garvey recounts their monumental 2013 win against W&J—their first in 33 years—while Coach Mister describes an incredible comeback against Thomas More where they overcame a three-touchdown deficit. These weren't just games; they were cultural turning points that participants still remember with crystal clarity years later.What makes this episode truly special is the unfiltered humor that flows throughout. From the player nicknamed "Snacks" who interrupted a serious team meeting to ask about snacks, to the fullback who "couldn't feel his legs" after a touchdown celebration, and other quirky tales, these stories capture the unique culture of small college football that rarely makes headlines but creates lifelong memories.Beyond the laughter, there's remarkable wisdom in these reminiscences. Players discuss how coaches emphasized that every team member had equal importance regardless of playing time—a philosophy that shaped their own leadership approaches later in life. Coach Mister shares how moving from an HBCU to Bethany created unexpected friendships across cultural differences, demonstrating how football can bridge diverse backgrounds.Whether you played college football yourself or simply appreciate authentic stories of teamwork and personal growth, this reunion offers a heartwarming glimpse into the profound impact that small college athletic programs have on the lives they touch. As these Bethany alumni demonstrate, sometimes the most meaningful fooSubscribe for exclusive content: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1530455/support Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREETactical BrotherhoodThe Tactical Brotherhood is a movement to support America.Dubby EnergyFROM GAMERS TO GYM JUNKIES TO ENTREPRENEURS, OUR PRODUCT IS FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO BE BETTER.ShankitgolfOur goal here at Shankitgolf is for everyone to have a great time on and off the golf courseSweet Hands SportsElevate your game with Sweet Hands Sports! Our sports gloves are designed for champions,Buddy's Beard CareBuddy's Beard Care provides premium men's grooming products at an affordable price.Deemed FitBe a part of our movement to instill confidence motivation and a willingness to keep pushing forwardDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the showFollow us on all social mediaX: @mikebonocomedyInstagram: @mikebonocomedy@tiktok: @mikebono_comedianFacebook: @mikebonocomedy

Professor Liz Oakley-Brown returns to the pod to discuss the play Thersites (c.1537) attributed to Nicholas Udall and based on a dialogue by from Joannes Ravisius Textor - the play features a snail fight, and much more - part of our build up to our season of Henrician drama. This episode was recorded live on zoom on Tuesday 10th June at 7.15pm 2025. For more on the medieval manuscript side of things - over on BBC Sounds (where available) is Knight Fights Giant Snail. We reference Marie Axton's Three Tudor Classical Interludes which is the only modern edition of the play that we are aware of. We will be staging Thersites live on Sunday 22nd June 2025 at the Quay Theatre - tickets for the show are available here. But if that's not possible we have two exploring sessions online - a vanilla First Look, and a super charged Second Look. CW: We keep this fairly Universal, but towards the end we do discuss a death. Entertaining Henry is a co-production with The Quay Theatre and Beyond Shakespeare... Let us take you through a whistle-stop tour of the entertainment world from Henry's reign: from his youthful days to his more fractious later life, we will share the history of his reign through the plays he and his subjects enjoyed. Play along with our Tudor Bingo Card, catch the pop-up merry tales, and enjoy entertainments fit for a king! Friday 20th June at 7.30pm Show 1 - Welcome to Henry's Court! (1509 to 1520's) We welcome you to the Court of the newly-crowned King Henry! Let us introduce you to all the major players on and off stage, the rules of the court, and perform some of the earliest plays to survive from his reign – plays designed to curb Henry's boisterous ways. https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-1-welcome-to-henrys-court/ Saturday 21st June at 7.30pm Show 2 - Reformation: More vs Cromwell (1520's to 1530's) As the Reformation hit England, different factions created dramas around the political rifts at court. The literary set that orbited Thomas More presented traditional debate on one side, whilst the rising star of Thomas Cromwell commissioned his players to write revelations on the other. https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-2-reformation-more-vs-cromwell/ Sunday 22nd June at 7.30pm Show 3 - Snail Fight! And Other Tudor Shenanigans (1530's to 1547) We close our festival with some of the sillier plays from the end of Henry's reign – featuring a sword fight with a snail, an ecclesiastical bust up in a church, and the epic conquest of the monster Tediousness! https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-3-snail-fight-and-other-tudor-shenanegans/ Season discount for each show - £14 for one show, £26 for two shows, £36 for all three Book Tickets Now for Show 1! Book Tickets Now for Show 2! Book Tickets Now for Show 3! Ticket discount is applied if you add additional shows from the season. Box Office: quaysudbury.com or call 01787 374 745 The Quay Theatre, Quay Lane, Sudbury CO10 2AN The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become a patron and you get to choose the plays we work on next. Go to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you want to give us some feedback, email us at admin@beyondshakespeare.org, follow us on social media usually @BeyondShakes or go to our website: https://beyondshakespeare.org You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel where (most of) our exploring sessions live - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLa4pXxGZFwTX4QSaB5XNdQ The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is hosted and produced by Robert Crighton.

In the second of our special episodes exploring the rise and fall of Sir Thomas More, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr. Joanne Paul chart the great Tudor statesman's demise. Despite his silence about Henry VIII's self-proclamation as Supreme Head of the Church of England, More was executed for treason on 6 July 1535. What were the events leading up to his fall from grace? How did More's position impact the King? And what can we now make of this contradictory character and his contribution to Renaissance thought?Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Alice Smith, edited and produced by Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Not Just the Tudors is a History Hit podcast.More:Thomas More on Film: The HIstorian's Verdict >Wolf Hall - Who's Who >Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries including Suzannah Lipscomb's series on the Dissolution of the Monasteries, plus a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

Thomas More is one of the most famous and controversial figures in English history. Was he truly the saintly man of conscience, immortalised by A Man for All Seasons? Or was he the stubborn zealot depicted in Wolf Hall? In the first of two episodes looking at Thomas More's rise and fall, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Joanne Paul, whose decade-long research into More drew upon new archival discoveries to unravel his complex legacy, his profound influence on modern Europe, the enduring debates about his faith and politics, and why his story still matters. Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Alice Smith, audio editor is Amy Haddow and the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.Not Just the Tudors is a History Hit podcast.More: Thomas More on Film: The Historians' Verdict >Wolf Hall - Who's Who? >Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

As part of the run up to Entertaining Henry we have this chat about Thomas More, prompted by Dr Joanne Paul's latest book on his life - it's a Venn diagram of a discussion, between the life of More, and the theatre world around him. Recorded live on zoom - there will be another live discussion in under two weeks time, details below. Thomas More: A Life and Death in Tudor England by Dr Joanne Paul is coming to UK bookshops this week, and the US in a couple of months (I believe) - do support your local bookstore, or order from somewhere responsible like... https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/thomas-more-a-life-dr-joanne-paul/7765640?ean=9781405953603 For more on the plays of John Heywood and a little on John Rastell - here's a handy playlist. Next Discussing Live: Snail Fight! with Professor Liz Oakley-Brown – Tuesday 10th June at 7.15pm Professor Liz Oakley-Brown returns to the pod to discuss the play Thersites, that snail fight, and why the Tudors loved snails! Sign up here! A co-production with The Quay Theatre and Beyond Shakespeare... Let us take you through a whistle-stop tour of the entertainment world from Henry's reign: from his youthful days to his more fractious later life, we will share the history of his reign through the plays he and his subjects enjoyed. Play along with our Tudor Bingo Card, catch the pop-up merry tales, and enjoy entertainments fit for a king! Friday 20th June at 7.30pm Show 1 - Welcome to Henry's Court! (1509 to 1520's) We welcome you to the Court of the newly-crowned King Henry! Let us introduce you to all the major players on and off stage, the rules of the court, and perform some of the earliest plays to survive from his reign – plays designed to curb Henry's boisterous ways. https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-1-welcome-to-henrys-court/ Saturday 21st June at 7.30pm Show 2 - Reformation: More vs Cromwell (1520's to 1530's) As the Reformation hit England, different factions created dramas around the political rifts at court. The literary set that orbited Thomas More presented traditional debate on one side, whilst the rising star of Thomas Cromwell commissioned his players to write revelations on the other. https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-2-reformation-more-vs-cromwell/ Sunday 22nd June at 7.30pm Show 3 - Snail Fight! And Other Tudor Shenanigans (1530's to 1547) We close our festival with some of the sillier plays from the end of Henry's reign – featuring a sword fight with a snail, an ecclesiastical bust up in a church, and the epic conquest of the monster Tediousness! https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-3-snail-fight-and-other-tudor-shenanegans/ Season discount for each show - £14 for one show, £26 for two shows, £36 for all three Book Tickets Now for Show 1! Book Tickets Now for Show 2! Book Tickets Now for Show 3! Ticket discount is applied if you add additional shows from the season. Box Office: quaysudbury.com or call 01787 374 745 The Quay Theatre, Quay Lane, Sudbury CO10 2AN The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become a patron and you get to choose the plays we work on next. Go to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you want to give us some feedback, email us at admin@beyondshakespeare.org, follow us on social media usually @BeyondShakes or go to our website: https://beyondshakespeare.org You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel where (most of) our exploring sessions live - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLa4pXxGZFwTX4QSaB5XNdQ The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is hosted and produced by Robert Crighton.

On peut faire de l'Histoire en s'amusant. On peut surtout faire de la littérature en s'intéressant sans ennui à l'histoire ! C'est ce que démontrent avec brio les deux invités de Claire Chazal pour cette nouvelle émission de « Au bonheur des livres ».La première a connu un succès assez fulgurant avec ses deux premiers romans et revient avec une nouvelle fiction historique qui s'intéresse au sort d'un personnage remarquable mais méconnu, Marie-Thérèse, fille de Louis XVI et de Marie-Antoinette, enfermée pendant trois ans à la prison du Temple : Victoria Mas signe ainsi avec « L'Orpheline du Temple » (Ed. Albin Michel) un livre aussi trépidant que soigneusement documenté.Ces mêmes qualités se retrouvent à l'évidence chez notre second invité, qui est non seulement écrivain et académicien, mais aussi avocat de renom et personnalité publique très écoutée dans les sphères politiques : François Sureau propose avec « Les enfants perdus » (Ed. Gallimard), le premier volume d'une série d'aventures mettant en scène le personnage imaginaire de Thomas More. Celui-ci traversera les époques à l'occasion d'enquêtes policières qui seront autant de tableaux historiques minutieux et vivants.Le point commun entre ces deux personnalités passionnées n'est pas seulement le goût de l'Histoire, c'est aussi le plaisir communicatif de la raconter sous des formes originales. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

In today's episode another trial that forms the basis for great drama: the case of Thomas More, tried and executed in 1535, events dramatised by Robert Bolt in A Man for All Seasons and Hilary Mantel in Wolf Hall. How did More try to argue that silence was no evidence of treason? Why was his defence so legalistic? Was he really ‘the Socrates of England'? And who was the true villain in this case: Thomas Cromwell, Richard Rich or the King himself? Available now on PPF+: Socrates part 2, in which David explores the verdict of history on this case and the fierce arguments it still inspires. Sign up now to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus Next time in Politics on Trial: Mary Queen of Scots vs the Secret State Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We chat with Dr Joanne Paul about her new book - Thomas More: Life and Death in Tudor England. (published by Penguin in UK and Simon and Schuster in USA).Please pour yourself a cup of Countess Grey and start a drinking game on how many times Joanne and I are going to say ‘More'... when talking about one of the greatest figures of the Tudor age - Sir Thomas More…Please watch/ binge/ indulge in My Lady Jane (2024) on Amazon Prime.Find Joanne:https://joannepaul.com/https://womenalsoknowhistory.com/individual-scholar-page/?pdb=979https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/6201559.Joanne_PaulPre-Order Thomas More:https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453261/thomas-more-by-paul-joanne/9781405953603 (UK)https://bookshop.canterbury.ac.uk/thomas-more-a-life_9781405953603 (UK)https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Thomas-More/Joanne-Paul/9781639368792 (USA)The House of Dudley:https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/309209/the-house-of-dudley-by-paul-joanne/9781405937191 (UK)https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-House-of-Dudley/Joanne-Paul/9781639366125 (USA)http://www.pegasusbooks.com/books/the-house-of-dudley-9781639363285-hardcover (USA)Utopia:https://www.waterstones.com/book/utopia/thomas-more/joanne-paul/9780198860204 (UK & USA)https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Utopia-by-Thomas-More-author-Joanne-Paul-editor/9780198860204 (UK & USA)Joanne's Other Books:https://www.hatchards.co.uk/book/counsel-and-command-in-early-modern-english-thought/joanne-paul/9781108748254https://www.hatchards.co.uk/book/thomas-more/joanne-paul/9780745692173https://www.hatchards.co.uk/book/queenship-and-counsel-in-early-modern-europe/helen-matheson-pollock/9783030083373https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/thomas-more-a-life-dr-joanne-paul/7765640?ean=9781405953603https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Joanne-Paul/197500984Find Baroque:https://www.ifitaintbaroquepodcast.art/https://www.reignoflondon.com/https://substack.com/@ifitaintbaroquepodcastSupport Baroque:https://www.patreon.com/c/Ifitaintbaroquepodcast/https://buymeacoffee.com/ifitaintbaroqueIf you would like to join Natalie on her walking tours in London with Reign of London, Tudors can be found on the following walks:Saxons to Stuarts:https://www.getyourguide.com/london-l57/london-the-royal-british-kings-and-queens-walking-tour-t426011/Stuarts to Windsors:https://www.getyourguide.com/london-l57/royal-london-georgian-and-windsor-monarchs-walking-tour-t481355 .For more history fodder please visit https://www.ifitaintbaroquepodcast.art/ and https://www.reignoflondon.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode features Dr. Nicolas McAfee, the Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the Center for Thomas More Studies who, in the fall, will join the faculty of Christendom College as Assistant Professor of Political Science and Economics, and Dr. Shaun Rieley, the Director of Educational Programs & Teaching Fellow at Hillsdale College's Washington, DC, campus. The episode shares their May 20th, 2025, conversation in our Lyceum Auditorium on the following topic: “Prudence and Patriotism: St. Thomas More's Dynamic Approach.”   

In this episode of the Gotta Be Saints Podcast, I sit down with Rosemary McGuire Berry—Catholic author, pilgrimage leader, and storyteller—for a conversation that's both practical and inspiring. Her new book, Piety and Personality: The Temperaments of the Saints, explores the ancient concept of temperaments and how understanding our personalities can lead us to holiness.Together, we discuss how the saints lived out virtue through their unique temperaments, and how we can do the same in our homes, marriages, work, and spiritual lives. This episode is full of wisdom, saintly stories, and encouragement for anyone seeking to better understand themselves—and become the saint they are called to be.Topics Covered:What the four classical temperaments are—and how to recognize themWhy your temperament is not a weakness to fix, but a gift to developHow Jesus perfectly embodies all four temperamentsReal-life examples of saints like St. Teresa of Ávila, St. Thomas More, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Francis de SalesWhy understanding your temperament (and your spouse's or child's!) can radically improve relationshipsThe battle against discouragement and how to push forward in the spiritual lifeHow each temperament faces unique temptations—and paths to virtueWhat practical steps we can take to grow in holiness, right where we are

ESSENTIEL, UN MONDE DE LIVRES Josyane Savigneau reçoit François Sureau pour son livre « Les enfants perdus » aux éditions Gallimard. À propos du livre : « Les enfants perdus » paru aux éditions Gallimard. Dans le premier volet des aventures de Thomas More, nous faisons connaissance avec ce détective à la fois mystérieux et attirant. Nous sommes en 1870, après la défaite de Sedan. More, commissaire spécial à la Sûreté, est retenu prisonnier dans la presqu'île d'Iges, comme des milliers de soldats français. Un crime commis dans son entourage conduit le roi de Prusse à demander l'aide de More. Chemin faisant, le commissaire éclaircit le mystère d'un autre assassinat, celui d'un capitaine de cuirassiers tué par un homme venu du bout du monde. Puis, rendu à la liberté en compagnie de son ami l'intendant Seligmann, More se consacre à l'affaire des incendies d'églises, sur la route de Laon à l'Alsace... Derrière l'aventure, François Sureau nous donne à lire un récit sur la nature du mal, du crime, du criminel, sur le passage du temps, qui confère une portée grave et profonde à ce feuilleton de haute volée où tours de passe-passe et érudition ajoutent au grand plaisir de lecture. François Sureau est né en 1957 à Paris. Ancien membre du Conseil d'État, il est aujourd'hui avocat à Paris. Écrivain, il a déjà publié aux Éditions Gallimard La corruption du siècle (collection Blanche, 1988), L'infortune (collection Blanche, 1990, Folio n° 2429), L'aile de nos chimères (collection Blanche, 1993, Folio n° 2429), Les Alexandrins (collection Blanche, 2003), La chanson de Passavant (collection Blanche, 2005), L'obéissance (collection Blanche, 2007, Folio n° 4805), adapté en BD par Franck Bourgeron (Futuropolis, 2009), Inigo (collection Blanche, 2010, Folio n° 5345), Sans bruit sans trace (collection Blanche, 2011).

Conférence : "L'Utopie de Thomas More : les coulisses de la fabrique d'un livre". Peine de mort, exode rural, propriété privée, éducation citoyenne, dialogue interreligieux …dans son ouvrage « l'Utopie », Thomas More aborde tous les thèmes qui fondent le « vivre ensemble ». Le livre paraît à Louvain, en 1516, il s'agit de l'un des textes majeurs de la pensée moderne. Quelles raisons expliquent le choix de ce lieu d'impression ? Quels réseaux le diplomate anglais a-t-il activé pour faire paraître son livre ? Quel fut le succès de l'œuvre de cet homme qui paya de sa vie son intransigeance à l'égard d'Henri VIII ? Dans le cadre du cycle de conférences "Un livre, une histoire". Avec les Lumières de Renaud Adam, chargé de mission à l'Université de Liège. Conférence : "L'Utopie de Thomas More : les coulisses de la fabrique d'un livre". Dans le cadre du cycle de conférences "Un livre, une histoire". Quand? Jeudi 15 mai 2025, de 17h30 à 19h Où? Presses Universitaires de Liège (Galerie Opéra), Place de la République française, 35 à 4000 Liège Entrée gratuite, mais inscription obligatoire : geoffrey.grandjean@uliege.be Merci pour votre écoute Un Jour dans l'Histoire, c'est également en direct tous les jours de la semaine de 13h15 à 14h30 sur www.rtbf.be/lapremiere Retrouvez tous les épisodes d'Un Jour dans l'Histoire sur notre plateforme Auvio.be :https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/5936 Intéressés par l'histoire ? Vous pourriez également aimer nos autres podcasts : L'Histoire Continue: https://audmns.com/kSbpELwL'heure H : https://audmns.com/YagLLiKEt sa version à écouter en famille : La Mini Heure H https://audmns.com/YagLLiKAinsi que nos séries historiques :Chili, le Pays de mes Histoires : https://audmns.com/XHbnevhD-Day : https://audmns.com/JWRdPYIJoséphine Baker : https://audmns.com/wCfhoEwLa folle histoire de l'aviation : https://audmns.com/xAWjyWCLes Jeux Olympiques, l'étonnant miroir de notre Histoire : https://audmns.com/ZEIihzZMarguerite, la Voix d'une Résistante : https://audmns.com/zFDehnENapoléon, le crépuscule de l'Aigle : https://audmns.com/DcdnIUnUn Jour dans le Sport : https://audmns.com/xXlkHMHSous le sable des Pyramides : https://audmns.com/rXfVppvN'oubliez pas de vous y abonner pour ne rien manquer.Et si vous avez apprécié ce podcast, n'hésitez pas à nous donner des étoiles ou des commentaires, cela nous aide à le faire connaître plus largement. Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

The guest in today's episode is Dr. Nicolas McAfee, the Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the Center for Thomas More Studies who, in the fall, will join the faculty of Christendom College as Assistant Professor of Political Science and Economics. He previews his May 20, 2025, conversation he will have with Dr. Shaun Rieley, the Director of Educational Programs & Teaching Fellow at Hillsdale College's Washington, DC, campus, on the following topic: “Prudence and Patriotism: St. Thomas More's Dynamic Approach.” Their conversation will occur on on May 20 at 7 p.m. in our Lyceum Auditorium, 313 Duke St. Please click here for more information.   

So what, exactly, was “The Enlightenment”? According to the Princeton historian David A. Bell, it was an intellectual movement roughly spanning the early 18th century through to the French Revolution. In his Spring 2025 Liberties Quarterly piece “The Enlightenment, Then and Now”, Bell charts the Enlightenment as a complex intellectual movement centered in Paris but with hubs across Europe and America. He highlights key figures like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Kant, and Franklin, discussing their contributions to concepts of religious tolerance, free speech, and rationality. In our conversation, Bell addresses criticisms of the Enlightenment, including its complicated relationship with colonialism and slavery, while arguing that its principles of freedom and reason remain relevant today. 5 Key Takeaways* The Enlightenment emerged in the early 18th century (around 1720s) and was characterized by intellectual inquiry, skepticism toward religion, and a growing sense among thinkers that they were living in an "enlightened century."* While Paris was the central hub, the Enlightenment had multiple centers including Scotland, Germany, and America, with thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, and Franklin contributing to its development.* The Enlightenment introduced the concept of "society" as a sphere of human existence separate from religion and politics, forming the basis of modern social sciences.* The movement had a complex relationship with colonialism and slavery - many Enlightenment thinkers criticized slavery, but some of their ideas about human progress were later used to justify imperialism.* According to Bell, rather than trying to "return to the Enlightenment," modern society should selectively adopt and adapt its valuable principles of free speech, religious tolerance, and education to create our "own Enlightenment."David Avrom Bell is a historian of early modern and modern Europe at Princeton University. His most recent book, published in 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution. Described in the Journal of Modern History as an "instant classic," it is available in paperback from Picador, in French translation from Fayard, and in Italian translation from Viella. A study of how new forms of political charisma arose in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the book shows that charismatic authoritarianism is as modern a political form as liberal democracy, and shares many of the same origins. Based on exhaustive research in original sources, the book includes case studies of the careers of George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint Louverture and Simon Bolivar. The book's Introduction can be read here. An online conversation about the book with Annette Gordon-Reed, hosted by the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, can be viewed here. Links to material about the book, including reviews in The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Harper's, The New Republic, The Nation, Le Monde, The Los Angeles Review of Books and other venues can be found here. Bell is also the author of six previous books. He has published academic articles in both English and French and contributes regularly to general interest publications on a variety of subjects, ranging from modern warfare, to contemporary French politics, to the impact of digital technology on learning and scholarship, and of course French history. A list of his publications from 2023 and 2024 can be found here. His Substack newsletter can be found here. His writings have been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Hebrew, Swedish, Polish, Russian, German, Croatian, Italian, Turkish and Japanese. At the History Department at Princeton University, he holds the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Chair in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions, and offers courses on early modern Europe, on military history, and on the early modern French empire. Previously, he spent fourteen years at Johns Hopkins University, including three as Dean of Faculty in its School of Arts and Sciences. From 2020 to 2024 he served as Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy. Bell's new project is a history of the Enlightenment. A preliminary article from the project was published in early 2022 by Modern Intellectual History. Another is now out in French History.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, in these supposedly dark times, the E word comes up a lot, the Enlightenment. Are we at the end of the Enlightenment or the beginning? Was there even an Enlightenment? My guest today, David Bell, a professor of history, very distinguished professor of history at Princeton University, has an interesting piece in the spring issue of It is One of our, our favorite quarterlies here on Keen on America, Bell's piece is The Enlightenment Then and Now, and David is joining us from the home of the Enlightenment, perhaps Paris in France, where he's on sabbatical hard life. David being an academic these days, isn't it?David Bell: Very difficult. I'm having to suffer the Parisian bread and croissant. It's terrible.Andrew Keen: Yeah. Well, I won't keep you too long. Is Paris then, or France? Is it the home of the Enlightenment? I know there are many Enlightenments, the French, the Scottish, maybe even the English, perhaps even the American.David Bell: It's certainly one of the homes of the Enlightenment, and it's probably the closest that the Enlightened had to a center, absolutely. But as you say, there were Edinburgh, Glasgow, plenty of places in Germany, Philadelphia, all those places have good claims to being centers of the enlightenment as well.Andrew Keen: All the same David, is it like one of those sports games in California where everyone gets a medal?David Bell: Well, they're different metals, right, but I think certainly Paris is where everybody went. I mean, if you look at the figures from the German Enlightenment, from the Scottish Enlightenment from the American Enlightenment they all tended to congregate in Paris and the Parisians didn't tend to go anywhere else unless they were forced to. So that gives you a pretty good sense of where the most important center was.Andrew Keen: So David, before we get to specifics, map out for us, because everyone is perhaps as familiar or comfortable with the history of the Enlightenment, and certainly as you are. When did it happen? What years? And who are the leaders of this thing called the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, that's a big question. And I'm afraid, of course, that if you ask 10 historians, you'll get 10 different answers.Andrew Keen: Well, I'm only asking you, so I only want one answer.David Bell: So I would say that the Enlightenment really gets going around the first couple of decades of the 18th century. And that's when people really start to think that they are actually living in what they start to call an Enlightenment century. There are a lot of reasons for this. They are seeing what we now call the scientific revolution. They're looking at the progress that has been made with that. They are experiencing the changes in the religious sphere, including the end of religious wars, coming with a great deal of skepticism about religion. They are living in a relative period of peace where they're able to speculate much more broadly and daringly than before. But it's really in those first couple of decades that they start thinking of themselves as living in an enlightened century. They start defining themselves as something that would later be called the enlightenment. So I would say that it's, really, really there between maybe the end of the 17th century and 1720s that it really gets started.Andrew Keen: So let's have some names, David, of philosophers, I guess. I mean, if those are the right words. I know that there was a term in French. There is a term called philosoph. Were they the founders, the leaders of the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, there is a... Again, I don't want to descend into academic quibbling here, but there were lots of leaders. Let me give an example, though. So the year 1721 is a remarkable year. So in the year, 1721, two amazing events happened within a couple of months of each other. So in May, Montesquieu, one of the great philosophers by any definition, publishes his novel called Persian Letters. And this is an incredible novel. Still, I think one of greatest novels ever written, and it's very daring. It is the account, it is supposedly a an account written by two Persian travelers to Europe who are writing back to people in Isfahan about what they're seeing. And it is very critical of French society. It is very of religion. It is, as I said, very daring philosophically. It is a product in part of the increasing contact between Europe and the rest of the world that is also very central to the Enlightenment. So that novel comes out. So it's immediately, you know, the police try to suppress it. But they don't have much success because it's incredibly popular and Montesquieu doesn't suffer any particular problems because...Andrew Keen: And the French police have never been the most efficient police force in the world, have they?David Bell: Oh, they could be, but not in this case. And then two months later, after Montesquieu published this novel, there's a German philosopher much less well-known than Montesqiu, than Christian Bolz, who is a professor at the Universität Haller in Prussia, and he gives an oration in Latin, a very typical university oration for the time, about Chinese philosophy, in which he says that the Chinese have sort of proved to the world, particularly through the writings of Confucius and others, that you can have a virtuous society without religion. Obviously very controversial. Statement for the time it actually gets him fired from his job, he has to leave the Kingdom of Prussia within 48 hours on penalty of death, starts an enormous controversy. But here are two events, both of which involving non-European people, involving the way in which Europeans are starting to look out at the rest of the world and starting to imagine Europe as just one part of a larger humanity, and at the same time they are starting to speculate very daringly about whether you can have. You know, what it means to have a society, do you need to have religion in order to have morality in society? Do you need the proper, what kind of government do you need to to have virtuous conduct and a proper society? So all of these things get, you know, really crystallize, I think, around these two incidents as much as anything. So if I had to pick a single date for when the enlightenment starts, I'd probably pick that 1721.Andrew Keen: And when was, David, I thought you were going to tell me about the earthquake in Lisbon, when was that earthquake?David Bell: That earthquake comes quite a bit later. That comes, and now historians should be better with dates than I am. It's in the 1750s, I think it's the late 1750's. Again, this historian is proving he's getting a very bad grade for forgetting the exact date, but it's in 1750. So that's a different kind of event, which sparks off a great deal of commentary, because it's a terrible earthquake. It destroys most of the city of Lisbon, it destroys other cities throughout Portugal, and it leads a lot of the philosophy to philosophers at the time to be speculating very daringly again on whether there is any kind of real purpose to the universe and whether there's any kind divine purpose. Why would such a terrible thing happen? Why would God do such a thing to his followers? And certainly VoltaireAndrew Keen: Yeah, Votav, of course, comes to mind of questioning.David Bell: And Condit, Voltaire's novel Condit gives a very good description of the earthquake in Lisbon and uses that as a centerpiece. Voltair also read other things about the earthquake, a poem about Lisbon earthquake. But in Condit he gives a lasting, very scathing portrait of the Catholic Church in general and then of what happens in Portugal. And so the Lisbon Earthquake is certainly another one of the events, but it happens considerably later. Really in the middle of the end of life.Andrew Keen: So, David, you believe in this idea of the Enlightenment. I take your point that there are more than one Enlightenment in more than one center, but in broad historical terms, the 18th century could be defined at least in Western and Northern Europe as the period of the Enlightenment, would that be a fair generalization?David Bell: I think it's perfectly fair generalization. Of course, there are historians who say that it never happened. There's a conservative British historian, J.C.D. Clark, who published a book last summer, saying that the Enlightenment is a kind of myth, that there was a lot of intellectual activity in Europe, obviously, but that the idea that it formed a coherent Enlightenment was really invented in the 20th century by a bunch of progressive reformers who wanted to claim a kind of venerable and august pedigree for their own reform, liberal reform plans. I think that's an exaggeration. People in the 18th century defined very clearly what was going on, both people who were in favor of it and people who are against it. And while you can, if you look very closely at it, of course it gets a bit fuzzy. Of course it's gets, there's no single, you can't define a single enlightenment project or a single enlightened ideology. But then, I think people would be hard pressed to define any intellectual movement. You know, in perfect, incoherent terms. So the enlightenment is, you know by compared with almost any other intellectual movement certainly existed.Andrew Keen: In terms of a philosophy of the Enlightenment, the German thinker, Immanuel Kant, seems to be often, and when you describe him as the conscience or the brain or a mixture of the conscience and brain of the enlightenment, why is Kant and Kantian thinking so important in the development of the Enlightenment.David Bell: Well, that's a really interesting question. And one reason is because most of the Enlightenment was not very rigorously philosophical. A lot of the major figures of the enlightenment before Kant tended to be writing for a general public. And they often were writing with a very specific agenda. We look at Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau. Now you look at Adam Smith in Scotland. We look David Hume or Adam Ferguson. You look at Benjamin Franklin in the United States. These people wrote in all sorts of different genres. They wrote in, they wrote all sorts of different kinds of books. They have many different purposes and very few of them did a lot of what we would call rigorous academic philosophy. And Kant was different. Kant was very much an academic philosopher. Kant was nothing if not rigorous. He came at the end of the enlightenment by most people's measure. He wrote these very, very difficult, very rigorous, very brilliant works, such as The Creek of Pure Reason. And so, it's certainly been the case that people who wanted to describe the Enlightenment as a philosophy have tended to look to Kant. So for example, there's a great German philosopher and intellectual historian of the early 20th century named Ernst Kassirer, who had to leave Germany because of the Nazis. And he wrote a great book called The Philosophy of the Enlightened. And that leads directly to Immanuel Kant. And of course, Casir himself was a Kantian, identified with Kant. And so he wanted to make Kant, in a sense, the telos, the end point, the culmination, the fulfillment of the Enlightenment. But so I think that's why Kant has such a particularly important position. You're defining it both ways.Andrew Keen: I've always struggled to understand what Kant was trying to say. I'm certainly not alone there. Might it be fair to say that he was trying to transform the universe and certainly traditional Christian notions into the Enlightenment, so the entire universe, the world, God, whatever that means, that they were all somehow according to Kant enlightened.David Bell: Well, I think that I'm certainly no expert on Immanuel Kant. And I would say that he is trying to, I mean, his major philosophical works are trying to put together a system of philosophical thinking which will justify why people have to act morally, why people act rationally, without the need for Christian revelation to bolster them. That's a very, very crude and reductionist way of putting it, but that's essentially at the heart of it. At the same time, Kant was very much aware of his own place in history. So Kant didn't simply write these very difficult, thick, dense philosophical works. He also wrote things that were more like journalism or like tablets. He wrote a famous essay called What is Enlightenment? And in that, he said that the 18th century was the period in which humankind was simply beginning to. Reach a period of enlightenment. And he said, he starts the essay by saying, this is the period when humankind is being released from its self-imposed tutelage. And we are still, and he said we do not yet live in the midst of a completely enlightened century, but we are getting there. We are living in a century that is enlightening.Andrew Keen: So the seeds, the seeds of Hegel and maybe even Marx are incant in that German thinking, that historical thinking.David Bell: In some ways, in some ways of course Hegel very much reacts against Kant and so and then Marx reacts against Hegel. So it's not exactly.Andrew Keen: Well, that's the dialectic, isn't it, David?David Bell: A simple easy path from one to the other, no, but Hegel is unimaginable without Kant of course and Marx is unimagineable without Hegel.Andrew Keen: You note that Kant represents a shift in some ways into the university and the walls of the universities were going up, and that some of the other figures associated with the the Enlightenment and Scottish Enlightenment, human and Smith and the French Enlightenment Voltaire and the others, they were more generalist writers. Should we be nostalgic for the pre-university period in the Enlightenment, or? Did things start getting serious once the heavyweights, the academic heavyweighs like Emmanuel Kant got into this thing?David Bell: I think it depends on where we're talking about. I mean, Adam Smith was a professor at Glasgow in Edinburgh, so Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment was definitely at least partly in the universities. The German Enlightenment took place very heavily in universities. Christian Vodafoy I just mentioned was the most important German philosopher of the 18th century before Kant, and he had positions in university. Even the French university system, for a while, what's interesting about the French University system, particularly the Sorbonne, which was the theology faculty, It was that. Throughout the first half of the 18th century, there were very vigorous, very interesting philosophical debates going on there, in which the people there, particularly even Jesuits there, were very open to a lot of the ideas we now call enlightenment. They were reading John Locke, they were reading Mel Pench, they were read Dekalb. What happened though in the French universities was that as more daring stuff was getting published elsewhere. Church, the Catholic Church, started to say, all right, these philosophers, these philosophies, these are our enemies, these are people we have to get at. And so at that point, anybody who was in the university, who was still in dialog with these people was basically purged. And the universities became much less interesting after that. But to come back to your question, I do think that I am very nostalgic for that period. I think that the Enlightenment was an extraordinary period, because if you look between. In the 17th century, not all, but a great deal of the most interesting intellectual work is happening in the so-called Republic of Letters. It's happening in Latin language. It is happening on a very small circle of RUD, of scholars. By the 19th century following Kant and Hegel and then the birth of the research university in Germany, which is copied everywhere, philosophy and the most advanced thinking goes back into the university. And the 18th century, particularly in France, I will say, is a time when the most advanced thought is being written for a general public. It is being in the form of novels, of dialogs, of stories, of reference works, and it is very, very accessible. The most profound thought of the West has never been as accessible overall as in the 18 century.Andrew Keen: Again, excuse this question, it might seem a bit naive, but there's a lot of pre-Enlightenment work, books, thinking that we read now that's very accessible from Erasmus and Thomas More to Machiavelli. Why weren't characters like, or are characters like Erasmuus, More's Utopia, Machiavell's prints and discourses, why aren't they considered part of the Enlightenment? What's the difference between? Enlightened thinkers or the supposedly enlightened thinkers of the 18th century and thinkers and writers of the 16th and 17th centuries.David Bell: That's a good question, you know, I think you have to, you, you know, again, one has to draw a line somewhere. That's not a very good answer, of course. All these people that you just mentioned are, in one way or another, predecessors to the Enlightenment. And of course, there were lots of people. I don't mean to say that nobody wrote in an accessible way before 1700. Obviously, lots of the people you mentioned did. Although a lot of them originally wrote in Latin, Erasmus, also Thomas More. But I think what makes the Enlightened different is that you have, again, you have a sense. These people have have a sense that they are themselves engaged in a collective project, that it is a collective project of enlightenment, of enlightening the world. They believe that they live in a century of progress. And there are certain principles. They don't agree on everything by any means. The philosophy of enlightenment is like nothing more than ripping each other to shreds, like any decent group of intellectuals. But that said, they generally did believe That people needed to have freedom of speech. They believed that you needed to have toleration of different religions. They believed in education and the need for a broadly educated public that could be as broad as possible. They generally believed in keeping religion out of the public sphere as much as possible, so all those principles came together into a program that we can consider at least a kind of... You know, not that everybody read it at every moment by any means, but there is an identifiable enlightenment program there, and in this case an identifiable enlightenment mindset. One other thing, I think, which is crucial to the Enlightenment, is that it was the attention they started to pay to something that we now take almost entirely for granted, which is the idea of society. The word society is so entirely ubiquitous, we assume it's always been there, and in one sense it has, because the word societas is a Latin word. But until... The 18th century, the word society generally had a much narrower meaning. It referred to, you know, particular institution most often, like when we talk about the society of, you know, the American philosophical society or something like that. And the idea that there exists something called society, which is the general sphere of human existence that is separate from religion and is separate from the political sphere, that's actually something which only really emerged at the end of the 1600s. And it became really the focus of you know, much, if not most, of enlightenment thinking. When you look at someone like Montesquieu and you look something, somebody like Rousseau or Voltaire or Adam Smith, probably above all, they were concerned with understanding how society works, not how government works only, but how society, what social interactions are like beginning of what we would now call social science. So that's yet another thing that distinguishes the enlightened from people like Machiavelli, often people like Thomas More, and people like bonuses.Andrew Keen: You noted earlier that the idea of progress is somehow baked in, in part, and certainly when it comes to Kant, certainly the French Enlightenment, although, of course, Rousseau challenged that. I'm not sure whether Rousseaut, as always, is both in and out of the Enlightenment and he seems to be in and out of everything. How did the Enlightement, though, make sense of itself in the context of antiquity, as it was, of Terms, it was the Renaissance that supposedly discovered or rediscovered antiquity. How did many of the leading Enlightenment thinkers, writers, how did they think of their own society in the context of not just antiquity, but even the idea of a European or Western society?David Bell: Well, there was a great book, one of the great histories of the Enlightenment was written about more than 50 years ago by the Yale professor named Peter Gay, and the first part of that book was called The Modern Paganism. So it was about the, you know, it was very much about the relationship between the Enlightenment and the ancient Greek synonyms. And certainly the writers of the enlightenment felt a great deal of kinship with the ancient Greek synonymous. They felt a common bond, particularly in the posing. Christianity and opposing what they believed the Christian Church had wrought on Europe in suppressing freedom and suppressing free thought and suppassing free inquiry. And so they felt that they were both recovering but also going beyond antiquity at the same time. And of course they were all, I mean everybody at the time, every single major figure of the Enlightenment, their education consisted in large part of what we would now call classics, right? I mean, there was an educational reformer in France in the 1760s who said, you know, our educational system is great if the purpose is to train Roman centurions, if it's to train modern people who are not doing both so well. And it's true. I mean they would spend, certainly, you know in Germany, in much of Europe, in the Netherlands, even in France, I mean people were trained not simply to read Latin, but to write in Latin. In Germany, university courses took part in the Latin language. So there's an enormous, you know, so they're certainly very, very conversant with the Greek and Roman classics, and they identify with them to a very great extent. Someone like Rousseau, I mean, and many others, and what's his first reading? How did he learn to read by reading Plutarch? In translation, but he learns to read reading Plutach. He sees from the beginning by this enormous admiration for the ancients that we get from Bhutan.Andrew Keen: Was Socrates relevant here? Was the Enlightenment somehow replacing Aristotle with Socrates and making him and his spirit of Enlightenment, of asking questions rather than answering questions, the symbol of a new way of thinking?David Bell: I would say to a certain extent, so I mean, much of the Enlightenment criticizes scholasticism, medieval scholastic, very, very sharply, and medieval scholasticism is founded philosophically very heavily upon Aristotle, so to that extent. And the spirit of skepticism that Socrates embodied, the idea of taking nothing for granted and asking questions about everything, including questions of oneself, yes, absolutely. That said, while the great figures of the Red Plato, you know, Socrates was generally I mean, it was not all that present as they come. But certainly have people with people with red play-doh in the entire virus.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Benjamin Franklin earlier, David. Most of the Enlightenment, of course, seems to be centered in France and Scotland, Germany, England. But America, many Europeans went to America then as a, what some people would call a settler colonial society, or certainly an offshoot of the European world. Was the settling of America and the American Revolution Was it the quintessential Enlightenment project?David Bell: Another very good question, and again, it depends a bit on who you talk to. I just mentioned this book by Peter Gay, and the last part of his book is called The Science of Freedom, and it's all about the American Revolution. So certainly a lot of interpreters of the Enlightenment have said that, yes, the American revolution represents in a sense the best possible outcome of the American Revolution, it was the best, possible outcome of the enlightened. Certainly there you look at the founding fathers of the United States and there's a great deal that they took from me like Certainly, they took a great great number of political ideas from Obviously Madison was very much inspired and drafting the edifice of the Constitution by Montesquieu to see himself Was happy to admit in addition most of the founding Fathers of the united states were you know had kind of you know We still had we were still definitely Christians, but we're also but we were also very much influenced by deism were very much against the idea of making the United States a kind of confessional country where Christianity was dominant. They wanted to believe in the enlightenment principles of free speech, religious toleration and so on and so forth. So in all those senses and very much the gun was probably more inspired than Franklin was somebody who was very conversant with the European Enlightenment. He spent a large part of his life in London. Where he was in contact with figures of the Enlightenment. He also, during the American Revolution, of course, he was mostly in France, where he is vetted by some of the surviving fellows and were very much in contact for them as well. So yes, I would say the American revolution is certainly... And then the American revolutionary scene, of course by the Europeans, very much as a kind of offshoot of the enlightenment. So one of the great books of the late Enlightenment is by Condor Say, which he wrote while he was hiding actually in the future evolution of the chariot. It's called a historical sketch of the progress of the human spirit, or the human mind, and you know he writes about the American Revolution as being, basically owing its existence to being like...Andrew Keen: Franklin is of course an example of your pre-academic enlightenment, a generalist, inventor, scientist, entrepreneur, political thinker. What about the role of science and indeed economics in the Enlightenment? David, we're going to talk of course about the Marxist interpretation, perhaps the Marxist interpretation which sees The Enlightenment is just a euphemism, perhaps, for exploitative capitalism. How central was the growth and development of the market, of economics, and innovation, and capitalism in your reading of The Enlightened?David Bell: Well, in my reading, it was very important, but not in the way that the Marxists used to say. So Friedrich Engels once said that the Enlightenment was basically the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie, and there was whole strain of Marxist thinking that followed the assumption that, and then Karl Marx himself argued that the documents like the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which obviously were inspired by the Enlightment, were simply kind of the near, or kind of. Way that the bourgeoisie was able to advance itself ideologically, and I don't think that holds much water, which is very little indication that any particular economic class motivated the Enlightenment or was using the Enlightment in any way. That said, I think it's very difficult to imagine the Enlightement without the social and economic changes that come in with the 18th century. To begin with globalization. If you read the great works of the Enlightenment, it's remarkable just how open they are to talking about humanity in general. So one of Voltaire's largest works, one of his most important works, is something called Essay on Customs and the Spirit of Nations, which is actually History of the World, where he talks learnedly not simply about Europe, but about the Americas, about China, about Africa, about India. Montesquieu writes Persian letters. Christian Volpe writes about Chinese philosophy. You know, Rousseau writes about... You know, the earliest days of humankind talks about Africa. All the great figures of the Enlightenment are writing about the rest of the world, and this is a period in which contacts between Europe and the rest the world are exploding along with international trade. So by the end of the 18th century, there are 4,000 to 5,000 ships a year crossing the Atlantic. It's an enormous number. And that's one context in which the enlightenment takes place. Another is what we call the consumer revolution. So in the 18th century, certainly in the major cities of Western Europe, people of a wide range of social classes, including even artisans, sort of somewhat wealthy artisians, shopkeepers, are suddenly able to buy a much larger range of products than they were before. They're able to choose how to basically furnish their own lives, if you will, how they're gonna dress, what they're going to eat, what they gonna put on the walls of their apartments and so on and so forth. And so they become accustomed to exercising a great deal more personal choice than their ancestors have done. And the Enlightenment really develops in tandem with this. Most of the great works of the Enlightment, they're not really written to, they're treatises, they're like Kant, they're written to persuade you to think in a single way. Really written to make you ask questions yourself, to force you to ponder things. They're written in the form of puzzles and riddles. Voltaire had a great line there, he wrote that the best kind of books are the books that readers write half of themselves as they read, and that's sort of the quintessence of the Enlightenment as far as I'm concerned.Andrew Keen: Yeah, Voltaire might have been comfortable on YouTube or Facebook. David, you mentioned all those ships going from Europe across the Atlantic. Of course, many of those ships were filled with African slaves. You mentioned this in your piece. I mean, this is no secret, of course. You also mentioned a couple of times Montesquieu's Persian letters. To what extent is... The enlightenment then perhaps the birth of Western power, of Western colonialism, of going to Africa, seizing people, selling them in North America, the French, the English, Dutch colonization of the rest of the world. Of course, later more sophisticated Marxist thinkers from the Frankfurt School, you mentioned these in your essay, Odorno and Horkheimer in particular, See the Enlightenment as... A project, if you like, of Western domination. I remember reading many years ago when I was in graduate school, Edward Said, his analysis of books like The Persian Letters, which is a form of cultural Western power. How much of this is simply bound up in the profound, perhaps, injustice of the Western achievement? And of course, some of the justice as well. We haven't talked about Jefferson, but perhaps in Jefferson's life and his thinking and his enlightened principles and his... Life as a slave owner, these contradictions are most self-evident.David Bell: Well, there are certainly contradictions, and there's certainly... I think what's remarkable, if you think about it, is that if you read through works of the Enlightenment, you would be hard-pressed to find a justification for slavery. You do find a lot of critiques of slavery, and I think that's something very important to keep in mind. Obviously, the chattel slavery of Africans in the Americas began well before the Enlightment, it began in 1500. The Enlightenment doesn't have the credit for being the first movement to oppose slavery. That really goes back to various religious groups, especially the Fakers. But that said, you have in France, you had in Britain, in America even, you'd have a lot of figures associated with the Enlightenment who were pretty sure of becoming very forceful opponents of slavery very early. Now, when it comes to imperialism, that's a tricky issue. What I think you'd find in these light bulbs, you'd different sorts of tendencies and different sorts of writings. So there are certainly a lot of writers of the Enlightenment who are deeply opposed to European authorities. One of the most popular works of the late Enlightenment was a collective work edited by the man named the Abbe Rinal, which is called The History of the Two Indies. And that is a book which is deeply, deeply critical of European imperialism. At the same time, at the same of the enlightenment, a lot the works of history written during the Enlightment. Tended, such as Voltaire's essay on customs, which I just mentioned, tend to give a kind of very linear version of history. They suggest that all societies follow the same path, from sort of primitive savagery, hunter-gatherers, through early agriculture, feudal stages, and on into sort of modern commercial society and civilization. And so they're basically saying, okay, we, the Europeans, are the most advanced. People like the Africans and the Native Americans are the least advanced, and so perhaps we're justified in going and quote, bringing our civilization to them, what later generations would call the civilizing missions, or possibly just, you know, going over and exploiting them because we are stronger and we are more, and again, we are the best. And then there's another thing that the Enlightenment did. The Enlightenment tended to destroy an older Christian view of humankind, which in some ways militated against modern racism. Christians believed, of course, that everyone was the same from Adam and Eve, which meant that there was an essential similarity in the world. And the Enlightenment challenged this by challenging the biblical kind of creation. The Enlightenment challenges this. Voltaire, for instance, believed that there had actually been several different human species that had different origins, and that can very easily become a justification for racism. Buffon, one of the most Figures of the French Enlightenment, one of the early naturalists, was crucial for trying to show that in fact nature is not static, that nature is always changing, that species are changing, including human beings. And so again, that allowed people to think in terms of human beings at different stages of evolution, and perhaps this would be a justification for privileging the more advanced humans over the less advanced. In the 18th century itself, most of these things remain potential, rather than really being acted upon. But in the 19th century, figures of writers who would draw upon these things certainly went much further, and these became justifications for slavery, imperialism, and other things. So again, the Enlightenment is the source of a great deal of stuff here, and you can't simply put it into one box or more.Andrew Keen: You mentioned earlier, David, that Concorda wrote one of the later classics of the... Condorcet? Sorry, Condorcets, excuse my French. Condorcès wrote one the later Classics of the Enlightenment when he was hiding from the French Revolution. In your mind, was the revolution itself the natural conclusion, climax? Perhaps anti-climax of the Enlightenment. Certainly, it seems as if a lot of the critiques of the French Revolution, particularly the more conservative ones, Burke comes to mind, suggested that perhaps the principles of in the Enlightment inevitably led to the guillotine, or is that an unfair way of thinking of it?David Bell: Well, there are a lot of people who have thought like that. Edmund Burke already, writing in 1790, in his reflections on the revolution in France, he said that everything which was great in the old regime is being dissolved and, quoting, dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. And then he said about the French that in the groves of their academy at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing but the Gallows. So there, in 1780, he already seemed to be predicting the reign of terror and blaming it. A certain extent from the Enlightenment. That said, I think, you know, again, the French Revolution is incredibly complicated event. I mean, you certainly have, you know, an explosion of what we could call Enlightenment thinking all over the place. In France, it happened in France. What happened there was that you had a, you know, the collapse of an extraordinarily inefficient government and a very, you know, in a very antiquated, paralyzed system of government kind of collapsed, created a kind of political vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped a lot of figures who were definitely readers of the Enlightenment. Oh so um but again the Enlightment had I said I don't think you can call the Enlightement a single thing so to say that the Enlightiment inspired the French Revolution rather than the There you go.Andrew Keen: Although your essay on liberties is the Enlightenment then and now you probably didn't write is always these lazy editors who come up with inaccurate and inaccurate titles. So for you, there is no such thing as the Enlighten.David Bell: No, there is. There is. But still, it's a complex thing. It contains multitudes.Andrew Keen: So it's the Enlightenment rather than the United States.David Bell: Conflicting tendencies, it has contradictions within it. There's enough unity to refer to it as a singular noun, but it doesn't mean that it all went in one single direction.Andrew Keen: But in historical terms, did the failure of the French Revolution, its descent into Robespierre and then Bonaparte, did it mark the end in historical terms a kind of bookend of history? You began in 1720 by 1820. Was the age of the Enlightenment pretty much over?David Bell: I would say yes. I think that, again, one of the things about the French Revolution is that people who are reading these books and they're reading these ideas and they are discussing things really start to act on them in a very different way from what it did before the French revolution. You have a lot of absolute monarchs who are trying to bring certain enlightenment principles to bear in their form of government, but they're not. But it's difficult to talk about a full-fledged attempt to enact a kind of enlightenment program. Certainly a lot of the people in the French Revolution saw themselves as doing that. But as they did it, they ran into reality, I would say. I mean, now Tocqueville, when he writes his old regime in the revolution, talks about how the French philosophes were full of these abstract ideas that were divorced from reality. And while that's an exaggeration, there was a certain truth to them. And as soon as you start having the age of revolutions, as soon you start people having to devise systems of government that will actually last, and as you have people, democratic representative systems that will last, and as they start revising these systems under the pressure of actual events, then you're not simply talking about an intellectual movement anymore, you're talking about something very different. And so I would say that, well, obviously the ideas of the Enlightenment continue to inspire people, the books continue to be read, debated. They lead on to figures like Kant, and as we talked about earlier, Kant leads to Hegel, Hegel leads to Marx in a certain sense. Nonetheless, by the time you're getting into the 19th century, what you have, you know, has connections to the Enlightenment, but can we really still call it the Enlightment? I would sayAndrew Keen: And Tocqueville, of course, found democracy in America. Is democracy itself? I know it's a big question. But is it? Bound up in the Enlightenment. You've written extensively, David, both for liberties and elsewhere on liberalism. Is the promise of democracy, democratic systems, the one born in the American Revolution, promised in the French Revolution, not realized? Are they products of the Enlightment, or is the 19th century and the democratic systems that in the 19th century, is that just a separate historical track?David Bell: Again, I would say there are certain things in the Enlightenment that do lead in that direction. Certainly, I think most figures in the enlightenment in one general sense or another accepted the idea of a kind of general notion of popular sovereignty. It didn't mean that they always felt that this was going to be something that could necessarily be acted upon or implemented in their own day. And they didn't necessarily associate generalized popular sovereignty with what we would now call democracy with people being able to actually govern themselves. Would be certain figures, certainly Diderot and some of his essays, what we saw very much in the social contract, you know, were sketching out, you knows, models for possible democratic system. Condorcet, who actually lived into the French Revolution, wrote one of the most draft constitutions for France, that's one of most democratic documents ever proposed. But of course there were lots of figures in the Enlightenment, Voltaire, and others who actually believed much more in absolute monarchy, who believed that you just, you know, you should have. Freedom of speech and freedom of discussion, out of which the best ideas would emerge, but then you had to give those ideas to the prince who imposed them by poor sicknesses.Andrew Keen: And of course, Rousseau himself, his social contract, some historians have seen that as the foundations of totalitarian, modern totalitarianism. Finally, David, your wonderful essay in Liberties in the spring quarterly 2025 is The Enlightenment, Then and Now. What about now? You work at Princeton, your president has very bravely stood up to the new presidential regime in the United States, in defense of academic intellectual freedom. Does the word and the movement, does it have any relevance in the 2020s, particularly in an age of neo-authoritarianism around the world?David Bell: I think it does. I think we have to be careful about it. I always get a little nervous when people say, well, we should simply go back to the Enlightenment, because the Enlightenments is history. We don't go back the 18th century. I think what we need to do is to recover certain principles, certain ideals from the 18 century, the ones that matter to us, the ones we think are right, and make our own Enlightenment better. I don't think we need be governed by the 18 century. Thomas Paine once said that no generation should necessarily rule over every generation to come, and I think that's probably right. Unfortunately in the United States, we have a constitution which is now essentially unamendable, so we're doomed to live by a constitution largely from the 18th century. But are there many things in the Enlightenment that we should look back to, absolutely?Andrew Keen: Well, David, I am going to free you for your own French Enlightenment. You can go and have some croissant now in your local cafe in Paris. Thank you so much for a very, I excuse the pun, enlightening conversation on the Enlightenment then and now, Essential Essay in Liberties. I'd love to get you back on the show. Talk more history. Thank you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The Easter issue of the Spectator includes two provocative articles exploring aspects of Christianity. Nigel Biggar, Regius professor emeritus of moral theology at Oxford University, now a Conservative peer, celebrates the heroic ‘faithful dissent' of Christian heroes such as Thomas More and Helmuth von Moltke, who lost their lives rather than defend injustice. Meanwhile Spectator columnist Mary Wakefield interviews Roman Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. She's inspired by his holiness but depressed by his use of ‘C of E bureaucratese' to uphold liberal orthodoxy on subjects such as gender ideology. But, she says they can share an uncomfortable space together within faith. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Nigel and Mary join Damian Thompson, who asks them: how can Christians embrace ‘faithful dissent' in an era of conformist Christian leaders who parrot the platitudes of secular opinion? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

The Easter issue of the Spectator includes two provocative articles exploring aspects of Christianity. Nigel Biggar, Regius professor emeritus of moral theology at Oxford University, now a Conservative peer, celebrates the heroic ‘faithful dissent' of Christian heroes such as Thomas More and Helmuth von Moltke, who lost their lives rather than defend injustice. Meanwhile Spectator columnist Mary Wakefield interviews Roman Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. She's inspired by his holiness but depressed by his use of ‘C of E bureaucratese' to uphold liberal orthodoxy on subjects such as gender ideology. But, she says they can share an uncomfortable space together within faith. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Nigel and Mary join Damian Thompson, who asks them: how can Christians embrace ‘faithful dissent' in an era of conformist Christian leaders who parrot the platitudes of secular opinion? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Full Text of ReadingsFriday of the Fifth Week of Lent Lectionary: 255The Saint of the day is Saint StanislausSaint Stanislaus' Story Anyone who reads the history of Eastern Europe cannot help but chance on the name of Stanislaus, the saintly but tragic bishop of Kraków, patron of Poland. He is remembered with Saints Thomas More and Thomas Becket for vigorous opposition to the evils of an unjust government. Born in Szczepanow near Kraków on July 26, 1030, he was ordained a priest after being educated in the cathedral schools of Gniezno, then capital of Poland, and at Paris. He was appointed preacher and archdeacon to the bishop of Kraków, where his eloquence and example brought about real conversion in many of his penitents, both clergy and laity. He became bishop of Kraków in 1072. During an expedition against the Grand Duchy of Kiev, Stanislaus became involved in the political situation of Poland. Known for his outspokenness, he aimed his attacks at the evils of the peasantry and the king, especially the unjust wars and immoral acts of King Boleslaus II. The king first excused himself, then made a show of penance, then relapsed into his old ways. Stanislaus continued his open opposition in spite of charges of treason and threats of death, finally excommunicating the king. Enraged, the latter ordered soldiers to kill the bishop. When they refused, the king killed Stanislaus with his own hands. Forced to flee to Hungary, Boleslaus supposedly spent the rest of his life as a penitent in the Benedictine abbey in Osiak. Reflection Saints John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Thomas More, and Stanislaus are a few of the prophets who dared to denounce corruption in high places. They followed in the footsteps of Jesus himself, who pointed out the moral corruption in the religious leadership of his day. It is a risky business. Saint Stanislaus is the Patron Saint of: Poland Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

durée : 00:22:59 - L'invité de 8h20 - Aujourd'hui dans le grand entretien, nous recevons François Sureau, haut fonctionnaire, avocat et écrivain, membre de l'Académie française, il se lance dans le polar avec un nouveau personnage récurrent. Ce sont “Les aventures de Thomas More. Les enfants perdus” (Gallimard).

As we continue living this Lenten Season and prepare for Holy Week, here is a passage from St. Thomas More's The Sadness of Christ for us to consider.

Surprise! We're having a party, and you're invited! Entertaining Henry will be a pop up festival of drama from the reign of Henry the Eighth - a three day pop up festival, performing six complete plays, and a number of over excerpts from the period. More info on our website here! A co-production with The Quay Theatre and Beyond Shakespeare... Let us take you through a whistle-stop tour of the entertainment world from Henry's reign: from his youthful days to his more fractious later life, we will share the history of his reign through the plays he and his subjects enjoyed. Play along with our Tudor Bingo Card, catch the pop-up merry tales, and enjoy entertainments fit for a king! Friday 20th June at 7.30pm Show 1 - Welcome to Henry's Court! (1509 to 1520's) We welcome you to the Court of the newly-crowned King Henry! Let us introduce you to all the major players on and off stage, the rules of the court, and perform some of the earliest plays to survive from his reign – plays designed to curb Henry's boisterous ways. https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-1-welcome-to-henrys-court/ Saturday 21st June at 7.30pm Show 2 - Reformation: More vs Cromwell (1520's to 1530's) As the Reformation hit England, different factions created dramas around the political rifts at court. The literary set that orbited Thomas More presented traditional debate on one side, whilst the rising star of Thomas Cromwell commissioned his players to write revelations on the other. https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-2-reformation-more-vs-cromwell/ Sunday 22nd June at 7.30pm Show 3 - Snail Fight! And Other Tudor Shenanigans (1530's to 1547) We close our festival with some of the sillier plays from the end of Henry's reign – featuring a sword fight with a snail, an ecclesiastical bust up in a church, and the epic conquest of the monster Tediousness! https://quaysudbury.com/events/entertaining-henry-show-3-snail-fight-and-other-tudor-shenanegans/ Season discount for each show - £14 for one show, £26 for two shows, £36 for all three Book Tickets Now for Show 1! Book Tickets Now for Show 2! Book Tickets Now for Show 3! Ticket discount is applied if you add additional shows from the season. Box Office: quaysudbury.com or call 01787 374 745 The Quay Theatre, Quay Lane, Sudbury CO10 2AN The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is supported by its patrons – become a patron and you get to choose the plays we work on next. Go to www.patreon.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you'd like to buy us a coffee at ko-fi https://ko-fi.com/beyondshakespeare - or if you want to give us some feedback, email us at admin@beyondshakespeare.org, follow us on social media usually @BeyondShakes or go to our website: https://beyondshakespeare.org You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel where (most of) our exploring sessions live - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLa4pXxGZFwTX4QSaB5XNdQ The Beyond Shakespeare Podcast is hosted and produced by Robert Crighton. 

Our Lenten Pilgrimage with the Saints continues this week on the Sacred Shores with St. Thomas More. Follow along with us in your devotional and enjoy the beautiful words, reflections, and art from Thomas Hooks and Thomas Loustalot. Join us on the sacred shore of Jesus' heart, to allow Him to create in you an internal spiritual river where His love will flow, not only through you, but out to the hearts of your loved ones and your community!......

English Women's Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women's utopianism that extends back to medieval women's monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures.  The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women's literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women's intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

English Women's Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women's utopianism that extends back to medieval women's monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures.  The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women's literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women's intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

English Women's Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women's utopianism that extends back to medieval women's monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures.  The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women's literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women's intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

English Women's Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women's utopianism that extends back to medieval women's monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures.  The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women's literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women's intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

English Women's Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women's utopianism that extends back to medieval women's monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures.  The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women's literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women's intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

English Women's Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women's utopianism that extends back to medieval women's monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures.  The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women's literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women's intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In this special episode of Political Saints, Marc Barnes and Nicolas McAfee discuss the heroic political life of St. Thomas More. Thomas More was the Lord High Chancellor of England from 1529 until 1531. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and was executed. Pope Pius XI canonized Thomas More as a martyr in 1935. Dr. Nicolas McAfee is the Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the Center for Thomas More Studies. He is the author of Political Wisdom in Late Shakespeare: A Way out of the Wreck (Lexington, forthcoming). You can find more on Thomas More Studies here: https://thomasmorestudies.org/ New Polity Conference 2025 is only a few months away! Register at https://newpolity.com/events Subscribe to the greatest magazine on earth: https://newpolity.com/magazine Check out our books at https://newpolity.com/press

William Paulet and how he served FOUR monarchs & kept his head In Tudor England, where one wrong move could mean the Tower, how did one man manage to serve four monarchs and die peacefully in his 90s? William Paulet, 1st Marquess of Winchester, had a secret: adapt or die. From the reign of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, Paulet mastered the art of political survival. He wasn't a radical reformer or a man of unshakable principle—he was something far more valuable: flexible. He knew when to bend, when to switch allegiances, and when to make himself indispensable. Today, I'm exploring how Paulet rose from humble beginnings to become Lord Treasurer under four rulers, outlasting rivals and avoiding the deadly fate of men like Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and John Dudley. Was he a brilliant politician, or just lucky? Let's find out. #TudorHistory #Tudors #WilliamPaulet #AnneBoleynFiles #HenryVIII #MaryI #ElizabethI #TudorSurvivors #TudorCourt #BritishHistory #HistoryLover

In this episode of The Classical Mind, we dive into Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins, a satirical yet deeply philosophical novel that explores the fragmentation of American culture, the tension between faith and modernity, and the collapse of both personal and national identity. Joining us for this discussion is Jesse Hake, Director of ClassicalU.com at Classical Academic Press. Together, we unpack Percy's biting critique of American politics, his unique handling of race and social divisions, and the novel's darkly comedic vision of a society unraveling at the seams. We also explore Love in the Ruins as a work that straddles multiple genres—dystopian fiction, theological novel, political satire—and discuss its protagonist, Dr. Thomas More, whose Lapsometer attempts to diagnose the spiritual and ideological malaise of modern man. How does Percy contrast faith with scientific materialism? Is his portrayal of America's decline eerily prophetic? And what lessons does Love in the Ruins hold for us today?Our next book is The Journey of the Mind to God by St. BonaventureEndnotes:-Junius: “Mr. Roboto” by Styx-Jesse: The Hidden Wound by Wendell Berry-Wesley: “The Fiction Writer and His Country” and “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction” by Flannery O'Connor Get full access to The Classical Mind at www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe

In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Stephen Smith, dean of the humanities, Temple Family Chair in English Literature, and professor of English at Hillsdale College, about St. Thomas More, William Shakespeare, and Christian humanism. What is the Christian humanist tradition? How does St. Thomas More exemplify that tradition? How was William Shakespeare inspired by […]

Thomas More was once one of Henry VIII's closest friends and most trusted advisors—a brilliant scholar, lawyer, and devout Catholic. But when Henry broke from Rome to marry Anne Boleyn, More's refusal to support the king's supremacy over the Church sealed his fate. In this episode, we dive into More's rise to power, his moral and religious convictions, and the chain of events that led to his arrest, trial, and execution in 1535. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Good morning! On today’s show, Matt Swaim and Anna Mitchell get more thoughts on what the Church teaches about the Communion of Saints with Karlo Broussard from Catholic Answers. Other guests include Gary Zimak with scriptural reflections on the Jubilee theme of hope, and canon lawyer Fr. Philip-Michael Tangorra from the Diocese of Paterson. Plus news, weather, sports and more… ***** St. Thomas More’s Prayer for Good Humor Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest.Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it.Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is goodand that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,but rather finds the means to put things back in their place.Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments,nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I.”Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke, to discover in life a bit of joy,and to be able to share it with others. Amen. ***** Fr. Philip Larrey is online at philiplarrey.com. Brady Stiller, author of Your Life is a Story Cincinnati Right to Life is online at cincinnatirighttolife.org. Full list of guestsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tom McDonald on "Wicked," Fr. Michael Rennier discusses St. Thomas More and strong families, and Fr. Andrew Jones has our Sunday Gospel Reflection. 

When faced with important decisions, what makes us say "yes" or "no"? Are our responses based on circumstance, fear of the person making the request, or our values? This week we take a look at Macbeth, Hamlet, and Thomas More to think about our values and how we use them.Show Notes:Carol Ann Lloydwww.carolannlloyd.com@shakeuphistorypatreon.com/carolannlloydThe Tudors by NumbersCourting the Virgin QueenHistory shows us what's possible.

Andrea Picciotti-Bayer has details on President Trump's Executive Order restricting transgender treatment for minors and Travis Curtright discusses Thomas More's example of holiness. We also talk AI and Deepfakes with Mike Dougherty.

Andrea Picciotti-Bayer has details on President Trump's Executive Order restricting transgender treatment for minors and Travis Curtright discusses Thomas More's example of holiness. We also talk AI and Deepfakes with Mike Dougherty.

The end of January brings with it Catholic Schools week.    Fr. Steven's home parish St. Thomas More traditionally holds and open house accompanied by a pancake breakfast on this Sunday.Fr. Steven has been assigned as the chaplain to two local catholic schools.    The first is the grammar school associated with his parish.    While pastor Fr. Ted serves more of an administrative role with the school Fr. Steven is able to serve as the “fun uncle”.Fr. Steven makes it a point to be there often during the week, greeting the young students when they arrive and seeing them at the end of the day.    One of the joys of working with these young children is that they do not hide their mood.   Whether happy or sad, they leave no doubt to their feelings.    Of course, the young students enjoy asking Fr. Steven any question that pops into their heads.Fr. Steven has started an Altar Server program at the school.   While the school has had altar severs, Fr. Steven provides a priestly presence.   He also strives to make certain to teach them something new every time they serve.The local catholic High School offers another opportunity for Fr. Steven.  Recognizing the importance of this time of life, he does his best to be present for the students.   He is also part of committee that is looking at the Catholic Identity of the school.

Thomas More knew the risks of serving King Henry VIII—but he chose to serve him anyway. Why?    Join me as we uncover the fascinating story of More's rise as Lord Chancellor, his sharp insight into Henry's dangerous nature, and the principles that ultimately led to his tragic end. Was he a loyal servant or a man who couldn't abandon his convictions?   Discover the truth behind one of Tudor England's most brilliant minds and his chilling prophecy: "If my head would win him a castle in France, it should not fail to go."   Watch now and let me know—was More's loyalty admirable or naïve?   #TudorTriviaSaturday #ThomasMore #HenryVIII #TudorHistory #OnThisDay #TudorTrivia #HistoricalMysteries #TudorCourt

The Kindergarten class at St. Thomas More school is excited for Christmas! Find out what they are most excited for and hear the story of the Birth of Christ.Subscribe to the Morning Blend on your favorite podcast platform.Find this show on the free Hail Mary Media App, along with a radio live-stream, prayers, news, and more.Look through past episodes or support this podcast.The Morning Blend is a production of Mater Dei Radio in Portland, Oregon.

Hey Podtimists, This week David goes on an adventure and Thomas More narrates it all. Then Chase goes back in time to see what it was like to live like an ancient Monke (thank you to Cameron for suggesting this one). Finally we took a deeper look at the 3D adventure game Blue Fire. This was suggested to us by listeners Benny Blue and Rob.i. Thanks to both of you! --- Timestamps: (0:00) - Intro (2:59) - What David has been playing (3:01) - Metaphor Refantazio (24:40) - What Chase has been playing (24:55) - Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey (38:19) - Luma Island (47:34) - Manga Minute (50:16) - Chase's Podtimistic thing of the week (52:30) - David's Podtimistic thing of the week (55:26) - Good Games! Featuring Blue Fire (1:19:45) - Outro --- Games mentioned: Metaphor Refantazio Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey Luma Island Blue Fire

The Prodigal Son has returned!Father Steven was invited to speak at St. Thomas More, his home parish.     Pastor Father Mike of St. Thomas More invited Father Steven to speak during our annual 40 Hours of Eucharistic Adoration.Though a parish priest's life is filled with many activities, priests must work to constantly strive for spiritual growth.Father Steven's talk preparation flowed out of this ongoing formational work.    Work such as ongoing prayer, reading and reflection provided the root from which the fruit of his talk flowed.Coming home to St. Thomas More helped form his 40 hours talk.  Reflecting on his personal journey, Father Steven's home parish is where he first heard the call of his priestly vocation and where his love of the Eucharist was kindled.    This is the place where he received his first communion and where he served as an Altar Server.   His home parish is also where he grew in devotion to Mary.Drawing from the Book of Revelation,  Father Steven's talk calls us back to our first love of the Gospel.     He called us not to let the rhythm and work of life to make us forget that love.Father Steven has also been called upon to speak at other places most notably another Prodigal Son visit back to his college alma matter IU to speak to address a group of college men.

Isaiah 61:10-11, Rev. 19:6-8 An immediate Consideration (Is. 61:10-11) Internal elation External elegance Wrapped in Gods salvation Clothed in Gods righteousness Natural expression An Eternal Celebration (Rev. 19:6-8) The Marriage Supper The Bridal Gown More to Consider I'm reminded of E.B. White's comment: "People have re-cut their clothes to follow the fashion...People have remodeled their ideas too -- taken in their convictions a little at the waist, shortened the sleeves of their resolve, and fitted themselves out in a new intellectual ensemble copied from a smart design out of the very latest page of history." When slavery to fashion invades the church, our latest ideas are yesterday's fads. We adopt the world's agenda -- just a few years too late. Many churchmen sport theological bell-bottoms. Charles Colson, Against the Night, p. 151. [how can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep. Thomas More, Utopia In these verses the prophet seems to be speaking for the redeemed remnant who will rejoice (cf. comments on 9:3) in response to Gods blessings mentioned in 61:19. Salvation and righteousness are pictured as clothes worn by the people (cf. Gods clothes, 59:17). In other words the Israelites are characterized by salvation (Gods redeemed people) and righteousness (those who are living by Gods standards; cf. 58:8; 60:21). To picture their joy and blessing a bridegroom wore a fancy headgear, like a priests turban, and the bride wore costly jewelry. God will cause Israels righteousness to spring up in (be known by) other nations (cf. 61:11; 62:12) much as the soil sustains the growth of plants Martin, J. A. (1985). Isaiah. In J. F. Walvoord R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 1, p. 1116). Victor Books.

Ian Auzenne and Allen Waddell co-hosted WWL's weekly Allstate Sugar Bowl Prep Football Roundup live from a Division III select quarterfinal matchup between the Catholic-New Iberia Panthers and Newman Greenies. The guys spoke to reporters live at the best games around the state including Rummel at Catholic-Baton Rouge, John F. Kennedy at Shaw, C. E. Byrd at Alexandria, St. Thomas More at Edna Karr, and Lakeshore at Franklinton. They interviewed winning coaches of teams heading to next week's semifinal round. WWL's Jeff Palermo joined Ian and Allen to recap the Rummel-Catholic game and preview the state semifinals.

Welcome to another Huge Niblet episode. And yes, it's a bit huge. (You saw the time stamp!) In the A segment, we discuss Hugh Nibley's 1969 diatribe titled Science Fiction and the Gospel as well as the article that likely triggered his rage induced lecture. Then we move into our penultimate Approaching Zion discussion. Following that, we have some excellent news about Gen Z women leaving religion. Enjoy!  Show Notes:  https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/hugh-nibley/science-fiction-gospel/   Sword of Laman:  Approaching Zion, by Hugh Nibley    Books and poems mentioned:    1984 by George Orwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four  In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose  The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy  Egyptian and Mesopotamian lamentation literature: lamenting lost glories and looking forward to a return of the same under a messianic king Lycurgus by Plutarch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus  Eunomia by Solon:https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/fid_91-96/fid_932_solon.html  Republic by Plato: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_(Plato)   Eclogues by Virgil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclogues  Utopia by Thomas More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)  The City of the Sun by Thomas Campenella: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_the_Sun  Nova Atlantis by Francis Bacon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atlantis  Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)  The Commonwealth of Oceana by James Harrington: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commonwealth_of_Oceana   The Adventures of Telemachus, son of Ulysses by François Fénelon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Aventures_de_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9maque    Other references:    1984 US Presidential Election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidential_election  Ronald Reagan scandals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_administration  Cry Havoc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dogs_of_war_(phrase)  Utopia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia  Rekhabite/Rechabite/Rekabite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechabites, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Order_of_Rechabites  Joachim of Fiore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_of_Fiore  Benedict of Nursia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia  Mendicant orders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendicant_orders  Potemkin Village: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village  Happy News: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/08/13/gen-z-women-less-religious/74673083007/  Next Live Show!: Saturday November 23, 2024 at 11:00 AM (Mountain time)    Kang, Lydia; Pedersen, Nate. Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything. Workman Publishing Company.  Email: glassboxpodcast@gmail.com  Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GlassBoxPod  Patreon page for documentary: https://www.patreon.com/SeerStonedProductions Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/glassboxpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlassBoxPod  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glassboxpodcast/  Merch store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/exmoapparel/shop Or find the merch store by clicking on “Store” here: https://glassboxpodcast.com/index.html One time Paypal donation: bryceblankenagel@gmail.com  Venmo: Shannon-Grover-10   

In this week's episode of Catholic ReCon, I revisit an essay video I produced a few years ago. To purchase a copy of More Reasonable: A Reformation Comparison: ▶https://bit.ly/3UGfxWO ▶Protestant denominations chart (circa 1965): https://bit.ly/3VRGjxU To help support future printings of More Reasonable: ▶https://www.eddietrask.com/sponsorship Narrated by James Majewksi of @CatholicCulturePod, More Reasonable (a Reformation essay) compares the logic of St. Thomas More and Martin Luther during the Reformation. Closed captioning available. #Reformation #MartinLuther #ThomasMore #Catholic #Protestant #CatholicChurch #JohnCalvin #solascriptura #solafide #GraceAlone #JesusChrist #Papacy #CatholicAnswers #ProtestantReformation #Essay ▶To support this channel, visit eddietrask.com/sponsorship

WWL Allstate Prep Football Roundup: Week 3 live from St. Charles Catholic v. Dunham full Ian Auzenne and Allen Waddell hosted the WWL's weekly Allstate Sugar Bowl Prep Football Roundup live from Laplace, Louisiana at a non-district battle between the St. Charles Catholic Comets and Dunham Tigers. The guys spoke to WWL reporters live at games across the state including Shaw at Rummel, Holy Cross at Chalmette, Jesuit at Bonnabel, Acadiana at St. Thomas More, Lakeshore at Northshore, and Franklinton at Pine among others. They also interviewed winning coaches around the state. WWL's Jeff Palermo joined the show to recap some of the surprising early-season results. 7725 Mon, 23 Sep 2024 19:24:25 +0000 dTPzNHFGQqE04sSZhoDKPuw6HGibDPw1 football,high school football,prep football,sports SportsTalk with Bobby Hebert football,high school football,prep football,sports WWL Allstate Prep Football Roundup: Week 3 live from St. Charles Catholic v. Dunham Bobby takes on the day's hottest topics in the world of sports, plus in-depth coverage of the Saints, LSU and Pelicans?.  WHO DAT!     2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc.

Make a defiant stand with us this week, because we're standing our ground against the English court! This week we're watching A Man For All Seasons, a movie about Thomas More and his refusal to betray his faith to King Henry VIII. A Man For All Seasons is from 1966 and was directed by Fred Zinnemann and stars Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, and Nigel Davenport, and John Hurt! Join us as we talk about this classic! Please Like and Subscribe! Click the Bell to Get Notifications! Please give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps potential sponsors find the show! Sign up for @Riversidefm: https://www.riverside.fm/?utm_campaig... Sign up for @BetterHelp: betterhelp.com/reviewinghistory Buy Some Merch: www.reviewinghistorypod.com/merch Email Us: Reviewinghistorypod@gmail.com Follow Us: www.facebook.com/reviewinghistory twitter.com/rviewhistorypod letterboxd.com/antg4836/ letterboxd.com/spfats/ letterboxd.com/BrianRuppert/ letterboxd.com/brianruppert/list…eviewing-history/ twitter.com/Brianruppert #comedy #history #podcast #comedypodcast #historypodcast #comedies #englishhistory #kinghenryviii #thomasmore #amanforallseasons #catholic #protestant #lutheran #oscarwinner #robertshaw #lol #cinema #film #moviepodcast #movies #moviereview #filmcriticisms #moviehistory #hackthemovies #redlettermedia #rlm #historybuff #tellemstevedave #tesd