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Article: Clash by night.(Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War )(Book review)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- March 27, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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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 Felicite 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 ...