Political

Lamennais: A Liberal Catholic

Only in a free political society, declared Lamennais and his followers, could nineteenth-century Catholics hope to evangelize the new age. Complete religious liberty, with disestablishment of the Church, freedom of education and of the press, and the decentralization of governmental authority, writes J.B. Morrall, were among the aims they advocated. His views having been condemned by the Vatican and himself denounced by conservative critics as “Robespierre in a surpliceLamennais at length abandoned the faith to which he had devoted so much talent and energy.

Jerome Bonaparte: King of Westphalia

The exploits of his youngest brother frequently disturbed Napoleon; but, writes Owen Connolly, of all the brother-kings, Jerome was the most useful to him, the most soldierly and the most loyal.

The Lost Leader: William D. Haywood

Patrick Renshaw introduces an archetypal twentieth century figure: the American Trade Unionist who fled to Russia and who Comintern believed they could use to lead an American Bolshevik revolution.

Georges-Jacques Danton, 1759-1794

In the autumn of 1792, as Lamartine wrote, the “national heart of France seemed to beat in Danton’s breast.” Eighteen months later, writes Maurice Hutt, Danton went to the scaffold, crying: “Show my head to the people; it is well worth it!”