Título: Tolkien, Philosopher of War
Autor: Graham McAleer
Sinopse: Book sales of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien keep pace with those of the Koran and the Bible. TV companies pay hundreds of millions to the Tolkien Trust to make adaptations of his work. In the UK, he routinely tops the list of the nation's favorite authors. An estimated 2 million war gamers use The Lord of the Rings figurines in their RPG. It is incontestable that Tolkien is the most influential Catholic writer of the last century. Tolkien, Philosopher of War fills a gap in the scholarship. It is the first book addressing the philosophical and theological understanding of war in Tolkien and will interest readers of Catholic Studies, the philosophy and theology of literature, war studies, Tolkien Studies, English studies, political theory, and aesthetics.
In popular imagination, Tolkien is a Luddite, but recent scholarship has identified Tolkien's extensive modern sympathies. Tolkien, Philosopher of War contributes to this growing literature. His is a modern critique of Enlightenment thinking, specifically those philosophies of history that wrest the initiative from God in divinizing man. His worry is apocalyptic politics, those political movements that take Christ's "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5: 48) out of the realm of grace and make it a platform for political action. Tolkien, Philosopher of War has three core theses: metaphysical, political, and aesthetic. In this, Tolkien is comparable to Cormac McCarthy, especially his Blood Meridian.
Tolkien took note of a tight analytical connection between the vanity driving commercial civilization – which Hume, Smith, and Ferguson all identified – and the vanity driving the Promethean fantasies of apocalyptic politics. War – indeed, total war – is a predictable outcome of this analytical connection. The three theses run: 1) metaphysical: the apocalyptic anxiety of Tolkien's lore is traceable to the gnostic rejection of the analogy of being typical of the philosophies of history that dominated his day; 2) political: in the English context, Tolkien sided with the Tories against Whiggery, defending monarchy as a counterweight to the vanity driving progressive philosophy of history; 3) aesthetic: Futurism's philosophy of history celebrated the Machine; inverting the value order, the Futurism art movement encoded anti-Christianity, fascist politics, and apocalyptic war. Tolkien's "cosmogonical drama," with its pastoralism and portraits of angels (Gandalf) and gods (Nienna), dramatizes an aesthetic resistance to Futurism.
Contexto da obra
Como livro em inglês, esta obra costuma ganhar também uma camada própria de interesse editorial e linguístico. “Tolkien, Philosopher of War”, de Graham McAleer, publicado pela editora The Catholic University of America Press, em 2024 e com 270 páginas, integra a categoria Livros em Inglês. Por isso, o interesse da obra tende a se ampliar quando o leitor considera também a relação com a língua em que ela circula.
Editora: The Catholic University of America Press
Páginas: 270
Ano: 2024-11-01
Edição:
Linguagem: en
ISBN: 0813238668
ISBN13: 9780813238661
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora The Catholic University of America Press oferecem uma experiência de leitura que combina rigor acadêmico com uma preocupação pela profundidade espiritual e histórica. O catálogo privilegia obras que exploram temas clássicos da filosofia, teologia e história da Igreja, muitas vezes por meio de textos densos e reflexivos, com forte presença de tradição cristã e pensamento católico. A linguagem tende a ser cuidadosa e analítica, adequada para leitores interessados em estudos detalhados, que valorizam tanto a erudição quanto a aplicação prática do saber, como em orientações espirituais ou análises éticas. Há um equilíbrio entre obras mais narrativas, que trazem cartas e correspondências históricas, e outras mais sistemáticas, que apresentam sínteses teológicas ou filosóficas, permitindo ao leitor navegar entre diferentes ritmos e focos.
