The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God

by George Weigel

Book Overview

Why do Europeans and Americans see the world so differently? Why do Europeans and Americans have such different understandings of democracy and its discontents in the twenty-first century? Contrasting... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465092667
• ISBN13: 9780465092666
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.7" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

EUROPE: ALL IS NOT LOST, YET

Anyone wanting a quick way to assets the general merits and intellectual muscle flexed in the book should glance at the chapter headed `Two Ideas of Freedom', contrasting the secular and sacred versions of Freedom with luminous brevity. However, the general easy-reading contemporary nature of the prose will be better gauged from the later chapter `The Cost of Boredom', which sums up why white post-Christian Europe cannot be bothered to procreate with sufficient vigour to stem its population decline, and our `postpolitical wilderness' of rule by faceless bureaucrats. As an American theologian and the biographer of Pope John Paul II, George Weigel is well placed to speak with perspective on Europe's current problems. The main thrust of the book is a critique of atheistic secular humanism (ASH) and its many virus variants which have infected the Euro-Russian continent. The emphasis is on the 20th century, and picks up the root philosophical and cultural causes of World War I and II, and the rebellion of the `Les Soixante-Huitards' (1968 riots) with remarkably fluent and coherent reference to Western European history as far back as the High Middle Ages of Aquinas and Occam (1200-), and glancing reference much further back. The Cube is the intellectual symbol of the sterile closed-universe ASH viewpoint, the architectural colossus of 'La Grande Arche' of Paris, being an open cube of white marble and glass about 40 stories tall and 348 feet wide. The cathedral is the rather more famous church of Notre Dame, which despite its ancient complexities and beauty in spire and tower, would `fit comfortably inside the Grand Arch'. This current edition is dated 2005, and probably just missed the rioting and looting and epidemic of car-burnouts that afflicted France that year. It is difficult to do anything like reviewing justice to this book at one reading, but one of the central themes is that `western Europe is committing a form of demographic suicide' (p.5), with a general greying of the population and coming universal pensions crisis due to a birthrate being less than the replacement rate. He might have added that Russia currently has an annual death-rate that exceeds the birthrate by 750,000, but his purpose does not extend to a proper vilification of communism. The root cause of our lack of reproductive enthusiasm is analysed to be spiritual nihilism, emptiness, and lack of purpose in life, having rejected the Christian roots of our historical culture. Its criticism of the purblind inability of the EU to see the problem, let alone grapple with it, will gladden the hearts of those who oppose this political con-trick that is the eurozone--despite the (to me) astonishing revelations he makes of the catholic Christians who were the architects of the whole scheme. He is frequently at pains to trace the intellectual, cultural, and moral roots of western Europe (the eastern empire is sparingly but properly referenced, and not ignored as is so often the case).

Lay Catholic Reviews Weigel's Cube & Cathedral

Weigel is one of my favorite authors, this is the fourth of his books that I have bought and read. The seeds for Cube & Cathedral have already been sown in Weigel's book 'Letters to a Young Catholic', but are greatly expanded and footnoted in this latest endeavor. The book delivers exactly what it promises, an analysis of how and why Western Europe is distancing itself from its Christian Roots and what the consequences will be. The book addresses recent events that have been extensively covered in newspapers, and also harkens back hundred of years to philophers whose ideas helped make us who we are today. The tone of the book is prophetic, in the sense it warns on what will happen if we turn away from God. Weigel also offers hope, for the role each of us must play to turn our world to Christ. I got an overwhelming sense of Salvation History in reading this book, Church Time is slow and deliberate, giving each of us many chances to influence history. However, I also see how my role is a small one because there are so many of us throughout space and time also created by God, also called to holiness and saintliness. The final hope offered is the incredible impact the World Youth Day agenda is having, in preparing the world for a rebirth in Christianity. The book is a quick read, wide margins and ample spacing between lines. It lends itself to rereading and highlighting of ideas that can be used over and over again in daily converstaion with others.

Forgetting our past, dooming our future

Why is it that the 70,000 word constitution of the European Union does not once mention the term `Christianity'? How is it that the framers of the EU document utterly fail to acknowledge the Christian heritage of Europe? Can European democracy long flourish in a culture that rejects the heritage that give birth to it? And what future is there for a free Europe which has spiritual and cultural amnesia, forgetting its very foundations? These questions are explored in an important new book by American social commentator and Catholic theologian, George Weigel. He argues that there are two main competing visions for the future of Europe. One is that of secularism as represented by the La Grande Arche in Paris, a huge glass and metal cube built to commemorate the bicentenary of the French Revolution. The other is Christianity, as represented by Notre-Dame Cathedral, which tourists are informed can easily fit into the grand cube. One vision follows a two-hundred year history of humanism, secularism, and atheism. The other follows the two thousand year history of the Christian church. Which vision, asks Weigel, can better protect democracy, human rights and meaning and purpose for modern Europe? Which vision will hold sway? Weigel argues that the answers to these questions will also help explain the issue of the "Europe problem". For example, how does one account for Europe's weakness in the face of international terrorism, it refusal to recognise the failures - and terror - of communism, its declining fertility rates, its fixation with international organisations such as the International Criminal Court and the UN, and its rampant Christophobia? Why has Europe repudiated its Judeo-Christian foundations and embraced secular humanism? Can such a Faustian bargain be in its best interests? Weigel argues that nations survive not just on economic or political strengths, but on cultural, moral and spiritual realities as well. It is culture and religion that ultimately makes for strong nations. What men and women honour, cherish, worship and value will determine a nation's future. But as modern Europe has done its best to minimise, ignore or repudiate the moral/cultural/religious factor, it is in the process of digging its own grave. After traversing the various historical and philosophical cross-currents leading up the current "Europe problem", Weigel reminds us of what Europe would look like if denuded of its Christian heritage. Gone would be a myriad of famous names, which he takes pains to list. Here are just a few, from the `B' list: Bach, Bacon, Becket, Bede, Benedict, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonhoeffer, Boniface, and Bosch. It was out of the Judeo-Christian worldview that such thinkers, writers, artists and scientists emerged. To seek to wish away that background is to commit cultural and social suicide, something Europe in now firmly embarked upon. In truth, "there is no understanding Europe without Christianity". Indeed, were it not for the Chr

Great Companion to "Of Paradise and Power"

Since the dramatic end to the Cold War, there has been a major shift in the United States'relationship with Europe. Robert Kagan, in his "Of Paradise and Power," highlights the US's shift from multinationalism ot unilateralism. Now, George Weigel in his "The Cube and the Cathedral" shifts gears from political and economic differences to examine the growing spiritual and cultural disconnect that we have with Europe. These, he argues, are the deepest currents of history...and America and Europe are drifting apart. History is driven over the long haul by culture - by what men and women honor, cherish, and worship; by what societies deem to be true and good and noble; by the expressions they give to those convictions in language, literature, and arts; by what individuals and societies are willing to stake their lives on. Weigel traces Europe's contributions fostered by Christianity to culture that brought protection of human rights, promotion of the common good, the defense of legitimate pluralism, and give an account of moral commitments that made democracy possible...all of which led to the great "American Experiment." Now, Europe has created a new constitution, one whose preamble denies its very Christian heritage. Weigel argues that this is the culmination of a trend within "Old Europe" to a vacuous secularism. A shift from God to the new gods - secularist deities that have broken the bonds between faith and the will to a future, between the hope of a future and self-confidence. Weigel in his analysis goes on not only to warn Americans that the idea of shared Western civilization is becoming obsolete...and that the seeds of what Europe to its current state also show signs of life here in the US. We must be vigilant to insure that post-modernity secularism does not also bring the "American Experiment" to a silent disastrous conclusion. This is a good insightful read for those who are interested in underlying global trends.

Europe in jeopardy

The issues covered are perhaps the most important issues facing the West as we begin the third millenium. We'll hear a lot about it as the de-Christianization of Europe seems to be number one item on the new Pope's agenda. The book is very important in that most Westerners - and I mean the educated westerners - don't even realize that a stage is being set for a war of religion/ideologies, just as liberals (in the American sense of the word) have convinced themselves that religion doesn't matter. See the review by an Urs Guber below who states that "Italy just happens to have the densest Roman Catholic population." I'm sure Urs believes she (?) knows a lot about Europe, but the statement betrays her complete ignorance of the trends under way. Italy is one of the LEAST Catholic countries in Western Europe, as - for instance - reported by CNN recently; the percentage of practicing Catholics - and Christians in general - has been falling rapidly in Italy, Germany, and France. Apart from an identity crisis it represents (whose long-term consequences are hard to predict), it has opened a great opportunity to Islam. Last year, a mosque was built at the site of a Catholic church in Granada (if you don't know what that means, you had better read up on history), and it's no coincidence that the largest mosque in Europe was built a stone's throw from the Vatican. Why the anti-religious left doesn't find that troubling is beyond me. Is Catholic Italy worse that Italy AD 2060 under sharia law? There will be no fashion in Muslim Italy - that's guaranteed. So even if you don't give a damn about religion or ideology, but couldn't live without Armani or Blahnik, you should be concerned.