To conclude the Christmas week, here is an interesting collection of essays generally about the work of the influential 20th century natural law philosopher, Jacques Maritain. The book is The Things That Matter: Essays Inspired by the Later Work of Jacques Maritain (CUA Press), edited by Heidi Giebel.

In the final year of his long life, eminent Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain prepared a final book for publication: a collection of previously unpublished writings entitled Approches sans entraves, later translated into English as Untrammeled Approaches. That collection, both in its conversational yet reverent tone and in its weighty topics – faith, love, truth, beauty – gives the reader the sense that she is receiving from a great teacher and friend the most important nuggets of wisdom for the next generation. Throughout the book, Maritain shares with his readers, from his heart as well as his intellect, regarding the things that really matter; that book – and those things – are the primary inspiration for the present volume.

This volume, comprised of original essays by twenty English-speaking Thomists on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Untrammeled Approaches’ first English appearance, explores several of Maritain’s still-untrammeled (or at least less-trammeled) themes. While following his unbeaten paths, the contributing authors find and refine hidden treasures at every turn. They develop some of his more speculative ideas regarding the spiritual world – including the last things, the fate of the fallen angels, and a possible angelic role in evolution. They reflect deeply on a few of Maritain’s recurring themes: for example, the nature of beauty and intuition. They analyze the implications – positive and negative – of Maritain’s philosophy of love, marriage, and sexuality. And they consider and apply his arguments regarding appropriate roles and interactions of Church and state. The volume concludes with big-picture reflections on Maritain, his thought, and his enduring relevance.

One of the themes of our most recent Tradition Project conference concerned the relationship between liberalism, populism, and nationalism, respectively, and tradition. And one of the readings for the workshop groups was a piece of Yoram Hazony’s recent book, “The Virtue of Nationalism,” which argues in favor of nationalism from a non-liberal perspective (you can hear more about these issues in this Legal Spirits podcast).

Here is a new book that also considers nationalism’s merits, but from an expressly liberal progressive perspective, arguing for nationalism’s contributions to and structural support for liberalism. A kind of Left nationalism. The book is Why Nationalism (Princeton University Press), by Yael Tamir.

Around the world today, nationalism is back—and it’s often deeply troubling. Populist politicians exploit nationalism for authoritarian, chauvinistic, racist, and xenophobic purposes, reinforcing the view that it is fundamentally reactionary and antidemocratic. But Yael (Yuli) Tamir makes a passionate argument for a very different kind of nationalism—one that revives its participatory, creative, and egalitarian virtues, answers many of the problems caused by neoliberalism and hyperglobalism, and is essential to democracy at its best. In Why Nationalism, she explains why it is more important than ever for the Left to recognize these qualities of nationalism, to reclaim it from right-wing extremists, and to redirect its power to progressive ends.

Far from being an evil force, nationalism’s power lies in its ability to empower individuals and answer basic human needs. Using it to reproduce cross-class coalitions will ensure that all citizens share essential cultural, political, and economic goods. Shifting emphasis from the global to the national and putting one’s nation first is not a way of advocating national supremacy but of redistributing responsibilities and sharing benefits in a more democratic and just way. In making the case for a liberal and democratic nationalism, Tamir also provides a compelling original account of the ways in which neoliberalism and hyperglobalism have allowed today’s Right to co-opt nationalism for its own purposes.

Provocative and hopeful, Why Nationalism is a timely and essential rethinking of a defining feature of our politics.

Thomas Cromwell is a crucial figure in the destruction of monastic life in England and the overthrow of Roman Catholicism to be replaced by the Church of England. His portrayal in contemporary, popular accounts has changed over the years–from Robert Bolt’s villain to Hilary Mantel’s secular liberal hero. Here is what looks like a very important biography of the man: Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life (Viking) by Diarmaid MacCulloch. Here’s a little something from a recent review of the book by Richard Rex: “[I]t is the overwhelming importance of religion in this revolution that puts paid to the Elton thesis of the birth of the modern nation-state. [Sir Geoffrey] Elton’s modernity was very much a postwar modernity—meritocratic, technocratic, and above all secularist—and his Cromwell tends to reflect that. His analysis presupposed a division between religion and politics that is normative today, but completely anachronistic for the sixteenth century. One of the key elements of MacCulloch’s achievement is to put religion back where it belongs, at the center of the story.”

Since the sixteenth century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king’s insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry’s mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.

History has not been kind to the son of a Putney brewer who became the architect of England’s split with Rome. Where past biographies portrayed him as a scheming operator with blood on his hands, Hilary Mantel reimagined him as a far more sympathetic figure buffered by the whims of his master. So which was he–the villain of history or the victim of her creation? MacCulloch sifted through letters and court records for answers and found Cromwell’s fingerprints on some of the most transformative decisions of Henry’s turbulent reign. But he also found Cromwell the man, an administrative genius, rescuing him from myth and slander.

The real Cromwell was a deeply loving father who took his biggest risks to secure the future of his son, Gregory. He was also a man of faith and a quiet revolutionary. In the end, he could not appease or control the man whose humors were so violent and unpredictable. But he made his mark on England, setting her on the path to religious awakening and indelibly transforming the system of government of the English-speaking world.