Gregory Melleuish - Böcker

This book provides a new and original approach to the Western tradition, its foundations, and the implications of its particular development for understanding the contemporary world.Arguing that with the creation of writing in the Axial Age, tradition took a ‘theological’ form that placed emphasis on rationality and abstraction at the expense of ‘piety,’ which emerges from immediate experience and wonder. Exploring the development of the West and its culture through the dance between theology and piety, with theology always leading, the authors consider the contemporary ascendancy of theology in the dominance of universities and the decline of poetry, shedding light on the reflection of this tension in contemporary politics.An examination of interplay of conflicting tendencies in Western civilisation – and the need for balance – Understanding Piety and Theology in the Culture of the West will appeal to scholars with interests in social theory, historical sociology, and cultural studies.

This book reclaims Cultural Liberalism as an important part of Australian intellectual heritage. Arguing that the tradition is central to the Australian experience of modernity, Gregory Melleuish traces the impact of cultural liberalism from its emergence around the time of Federation to its demise during the 1960s. Part collective biography, part intellectual and cultural history, the book describes the development of cultural liberalism, founded on rationalism and humanism, by university-educated intellectuals. Dr Melleuish argues that a religious and spiritual dimension was also central to the tradition. He draws attention to the intellectual similarities of thinkers not usually grouped together, and also considers those who inherited the tradition but repudiated it. This provocative book will make an important contribution to debates about culture, identity and citizenship in post-modern Australia.