The Essential Belloc

A Prophet for Our Times

A new book by Father John McCloskey.

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"More than any other man, Hilaire Belloc made the English-speaking Catholic world in which we all live." ~Frank Sheed

He was a poet, a polemicist, and a prose stylist without peer, but Hilaire Belloc (1870-1954) was first and above all a mighty champion of the Catholic faith. With his brave (and sometimes brash) defenses of Catholic civilization, he taught an entire generation of Catholics never to stand for being treated as second-class citizens in the predominantly Protestant Anglosphere.

Today, with the Faith once again suffering scorn and contempt from all sides, it is time to re-discover this Catholic champion.

The Essential Belloc draws upon the prolific writer's works (he authored more than 140 books, plus countless articles, pamphlets, and letters) to provide a comprehensive overview of his ideas, style, and personality. More than just a collection of quotes, these pages offer rich samplings from Belloc's writings, affording you a solid introduction to his thoughts on:

• The foundational link between European culture and the Catholic faith.
• The anti-Catholic historical myths that the English-speaking world has come to accept as fact.
• The limits—and dangers—of science that has abandoned faith in God.
• The latent power and future menace of militant Islam.
• The characteristic faults of political and economic systems that deviate from Catholic principles.
• The particular charms of places throughout the world: their towns and roads, their churches and inns.
• The love of good food, wine, and ale, and the songs of camaraderie that go with them.
• And more—plus delightful examples of Belloc's poetry and wit.

Belloc himself once remarked that "genius is the ability to think in a very large number of categories." In The Essential Belloc you will marvel at how well he fits that very definition, and be edified by the breadth of his brilliance—and its continuing relevance for the modern world.

What Readers Are Saying

At a time when Catholicism is again vilified, Fr.C John McCloskey, Scott Bloch, and Brian Robertson have done a timely service to us all by bringing forth this affectionate and appreciative study of Hilaire Belloc, that splendlid writer, modern prophet, and morally courageous defender of the Faith.
~Pat Buchanan

"From graceful depths to bumptious joy, Belloc's prose deserves an audience literate, allergic to cant, and wise. Nevertheless, it will have to make do with us."
~David Whalen

Hilaire Belloc should be essential reading for any serious Catholic wishing to get to grips with the modern world and the evils it promotes and fosters. And if Belloc is essential reading what better than a book that brings together the "essential Belloc" into one power-punching volume?
~Joseph Pearce

Belloc believed that party and the state are not all powerful, that the Church and Family have primacy of place. He married an American and was fond of saying that our Declaration of Independence was a master work of freedom in the world's history. As such, we need him more than ever to reestablish our religious liberties, the rights of the family, of marriage, and the sacred right of property.
~Senator Rick Santorum

Economics and competition never happen in a moral-free zone. Hilaire Belloc offers us a roadmap for a healthy economy and a healthy culture. Read this book and you will see how Belloc was among the few in the last hundred years who advocated for better business principles that are not predatory but just, not given over to big government but ordered to free people in a free economy.
~Dr. Andrew Abela

"They called Hilaire Belloc "Old Thunder." After Bellocian Thunder will come first the rain and then the fruit of truth for those able readers of The Essential Belloc who dare to wrestle with the master's muscular prose."
~Robert K. Carlson

"In the pantheon of English literature the bust of Hilaire Belloc has been relegated to a dusty corner, frequented only by the convivial cognoscenti who gather to drink claret beneath its shade. The great man deserves to be better known, the conviviality should be spread, and I hope The Essential Belloc finds the wide readership it deserves."
~H. W. Crocker III

There is no one like Hilaire Belloc, no one who could describe a battlefield or a heresy with such penetrating insight, no one who saw the future as clearly (eg, Islam's rise; Calvinism's vitality among the Protestants); no one who could conjure so invitingly and vividly the pleasures of hearth and home and friendship and walking and roaring. I thank Father Schall for pressing me to read him, and I thank Scott Bloch, Brian Robertson and Father McCloskey for taking the (no doubt bracing and wonderful) time to draw his insights and his splendid writing together for us and future generations to read, to savor, and to exhult in, and I hope it leads us all to give thanks to the good God who gave us Hilaire Belloc.
~William Saunders