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 enlarge | Author: Carl Anderson
Publisher: HarperOne
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $14.57
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Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 96261
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0061335312
Dewey Decimal Number: 261
EAN: 9780061335310
ASIN: 0061335312
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Highly Recommended May 1, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
A very good synopsis of Catholic teaching on social justice, highlighting the writings of the last two popes, and clearly differentiating Catholics from the secular culture. At times it has an air of preaching to the converted, as much will be relatively familiar to serious Catholics. The chapter titled "A Continent of Baptized Christians" was very illuminating. I had never really though about the commonality of strong Christian tradition in North, Central, and South America, especially compared to modern secular Europe. Unfortunately our Christian brothers to the south are often thought of only in relation to the immigration problem (a familiar theme to many ethnic Catholics)and Mr Anderson really highlights the importance of Hispanic culture for the future of Catholicism. Perhaps our shared spiritual experience can bring us together, rather than building walls and retreating into isolationism.
David John April 24, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I love what Carl had to say about the importants of family. The book also put further light on what our Lady of Fatima said on July 13th, 1917 about the errors of Communism. Adding also facts about Nuremberg, and Nazi lawyers ahead of Roe vs Wade. There is truly much to learn about true justice in this book.
 A must read for all serious Catholics. April 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Carl Anderson provides a well thought-out approach to making our world a better place for everyone.
"A call to active hope" April 16, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"My love is something valuable to me which I ought not to throw away without reflection" Eight decades after Freud's criticism of the Christian call to love comes a reflection and reply worth noting.
Ambitiously, the book develops Catholic theological ideas to their practical conclusions and sets them in the common secular marketplace of ideas. Love, as the fundamental law of God, is our natural law; the structure of love based on theology of the Trinity creates the guide for marriage and family; the dignity of the human person based on being created in the image of God demands charity and respect. In these, his reasoning is undeniably Catholic, and especially papal, yet his diversity of examples helps enormously to broaden and concretize the concepts.
Crucial to the feasibility of a civilization of love in a culture of capitalism is the treatment of work, and his chapters on marketplace ethics and globalization provide a positive philosophy on labor unattempted by a bestseller since Ayn Rand. However, his message is radically different: the dignity of work lies in its participation in mankind's redemption. Business and globalization become noble in their unique capacity to translate love into the systems of enterprise; when they go awry, they reveal in a calculable way the cost we put on human life.
The risk in writing a book about love is that it requires some amount of repetition of a very, well, common theme in life. Fortunately, Anderson proves himself a master at drawing out the intricacies (radical and compelling in their own right) in each new light, and successfully avoids the singsong of flowerchild mantras that so detrimentally cauterized the serious consideration a civilization of love till now.
And in this, practicality can never be far. This is especially true in the suggestions for contemplation and action at the end of each chapter. Rather than being guidebooky, they seek more to train the eye to reconnect and reassess one's life - challenging and revitalizing and, I might add, fascinating to bring up with family or friends. I was surprised at how different their responses they gave on some issues.
I also found the book's website an interesting reference and well worth the exploration: www.acivilizationoflove.com
As a whole, the book does more than it proposed, and becomes a breakthrough and fundamental document in what we can expect to become a vital debate. For skeptics, Anderson creates a sort of apologia pro amore, presenting vividly an argument for the rationality of the Christian vocation to love. For the converted, he brings out an analysis of love that brings an integrity that revolutionizes not only how we look at love in our life but how we live the privilege of the vocation to love.
A revitalizing read -
From the wife of a Knight of Columbus March 31, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
After reading A Civilization of Love, I had one overwhelming thought: this is a good man.
We are in need of such good men. As the cultural voices in America become increasingly polarized and dispirited, Carl Anderson offers a good man's thoughtful exploration of the major issues facing our humanity: freedom, love, sex, work, ethics and justice. Central to Anderson's suggestions about how to "transform the world" is an understanding that one good man cannot face these aspects of human life with any sustaining goodness of his own. He quotes a 1964 sermon by then-Father Joseph Ratzinger: "[God] loves us not because we are good, but because he is good."
The Civilization of Love is the witness of a man in the world-- CEO, attorney, former White House staffer--who has taken a stand and made a commitment to receive the transforming goodness offered to men and women in the life of the Catholic Church, through the living presence of Jesus Christ.
As the wife of a Knight of Columbus, I am happy that Mr. Anderson is leading other good men by continuing to point the way toward a civilization of love.
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