Traditions in Turmoil

That ours is a time of intellectual, cultural, moral, and religious turmoil does not need to be argued. What does need to be argued, and what Glendon argues with force and freshness, is that our response to turmoil requires a greater honesty in coming to terms with tradition, and with traditions in conflict. That is little understood by many on both the political left and right. Quoting one of her favorite thinkers, theologian Bernard Lonergan, she urges us to be "big enough to be at home in the both and old and new; and painstaking enough to work out one at a time the transitions to be made." Working within the capacious structure of the Christian intellectual tradition, most reflectively and generously articulated in Catholic teaching, Glendon constructively engages alternative ways of thinking about what it means to be human and what is required to nurture a society worthy of human beings. As the reader will see, her work ranges far and wide, and it goes deep. There is hardly a subject she addresses that does not change the way we think about it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Ann Glendon is Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. She teaches and writes on international human rights, comparative law; and constitutional law issues. She is the author of many books including  Rights Talk, A Nation Under Lawyers, and most recently  A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.