Clash by Night

Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the Great War, by Michael Burleigh (HarperCollins, 544 pp., $29.95)

ANYONE who thinks that American political life has been poisoned and polarized beyond any hope of cure should try to guess what nightmare of Napoleonic tyranny the French priest Félicité de Lamennais had in mind when he declared, following the Bourbon Restoration: “I have no hesitation in saying that, of all Bonaparte’s conceptions, [this is] the most appalling to every considering man, the most profoundly anti-social, in a word the most characteristic of its author. . . . When the tyrant thought he had made sure by so many horrible laws of the misery of the present generation, he raised this monstrous edifice as a monument to his hatred for future generations; it was as though he wanted to rob the human race even of hope.”

About the Author

Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat is a former National Review contributing editor.

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Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe from the French Revolution to the Great War, by Michael Burleigh (HarperCollins, 544 pp., $29.95)

ANYONE who thinks that American political life has been poisoned and polarized beyond any hope of cure should try to guess what nightmare of Napoleonic tyranny the French priest Félicité de Lamennais had in mind when he declared, following the Bourbon Restoration: “I have no hesitation in saying that, of all Bonaparte’s conceptions, [this is] the most appalling to every considering man, the most profoundly anti-social, in a word the most characteristic of its author. . . . When the tyrant thought he had made sure by so many horrible laws of the misery of the present generation, he raised this monstrous edifice as a monument to his hatred for future generations; it was as though he wanted to rob the human race even of hope.”