Reviews for Parochial Law

The average rating for Parochial Law based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-22 00:00:00 Michael Krall Having panned a recent "short history". I sought a good "short history." I stumbled across G. K. Chesterton's A Short History of England, which I tried because of previous experience with his writings. I was disappointed. The book is incorrectly titled. It should have been "A Short Commentary on the History of England," though at almost 400 pages it's hardly short. Second, I found it shared the same faults as A Short History of the World, that of the author's opinions flowing freely throughout. In fact, Chesterton's basic opinion on any subject seems to be contrary to whatever was the conventional wisdom. Undoubtedly, it would have be fun to know and converse with someone so informed and opinionated. His prose is like a scalpel, sometimes drawing blood before we feel the cut. "To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." "A civilized state may fall from being a Christian nation to being a Chosen People." He declares but doesn't explain that "Puritan[ism] was first and last a veneer on Paganism." "Only the blessed bless." "Tradition is truer than fashion." "A return to the past by men ignorant of the past," parallels G. Santayana's famous quote published nine years before. "The only way to write a popular history . . . would be to write it backwards." In fact A Short History of England can only be understood by readers with a good familiarity with English history because Chesterton often refers to people and events only obliquely. The other striking characteristic of his volume is Chesterton's bifocal myopia. All his judgments seem filtered through his rosy lenses of his Catholicism and the dark hue of his anti-Germanism. The latter is understandable, since this book was published early in World War One. The other seems strange until we remember that Chesterton is that most dangerous type of believer: a convert during his adulthood. (Chesterton formalized his Catholicism in 1922, but his vector is obvious in 1914.) He defends his bias as "correct[ing] a disproportion." A fun and challenging read, but Chesterton's prose is hard going for readers a century later.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-04-21 00:00:00 Bridget Appel The least factual based history book I've ever read. Beautifully written and very poetic story of history and perspective.