The Third Coming - by Peter H Schwartz (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A groundbreaking reframing of post-war America through the lens of conservative Catholicism, and the medieval Catholic moral philosophy that has transformed the nation's politics and culture

In the 1980s, a generation of intellectually elite, conservative Catholic radicals rose from the cul-de-sacs of postwar suburban America to wage war on Enlightenment liberalism--the foundational creed of the American republic. We live today with the consequences.

In The Third Coming, political theorist Peter H. Schwartz delivers an intellectually fearless account of the rise of this radical Catholic elite and the thirteenth-century theological doctrine providing the blueprint for a future in which human sovereignty gives way to the sovereignty of God. Catholic natural law--the doctrinal north star for this religious counterculture--has underpinned Project 2025 and guides Federalist Society judges, Heritage Foundation scholars, MAGA legislators, and right-wing "new media" personalities.

Ultimately, Schwartz argues, this medieval resurgence will prove helpless against a third force, the quantum future of the information age in which the algorithm is sovereign--a future arriving faster than we can imagine. Provocative, enlightening, and brilliantly argued, The Third Coming is an essential guide to understanding the collision of America's past, present, and future, and what comes next.

About the Author

Peter H. Schwartz writes at the broad intersection of philosophy, politics, history, and religion. He received a PhD in political theory from UC Berkeley and has held teaching and research positions at UC Berkeley, University of Maryland, Washington University in St. Louis, and Tulane University. He founded Knowledge Mosaic, an online legal news and research company that was acquired by LexisNexis. His writing has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, Salon, Religion Dispatches, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among other publications. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.