Newman and History

In Newman and History, Edward Short shows how important history was to all aspects of the life and work of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman. There are essays here on Newman and Edward Gibbon; Newman and the Whig historians; and Newman and the law, especially the infamous Achilli trial of 1851, which pitted him against a Protestant Establishment still smarting from the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy ̶ disparagingly referred to by many Victorians as “papal aggression”.

Readers interested in Newman’s history-laden conversion will enjoy “Newman, C. S. Lewis, and the Reality of Conversion”; those interested in Tractarianism will find a piece that looks at what became of the Oxford Movement after Newman abandoned the via media and seceded to Rome. The chapter entitled “Newman and the Liberals” charts his life-long critique of liberalism. Edward Short also examines Newman’s letters and his writings as a unified whole, concludes with a far-ranging essay “Newman, History and Hagiography”, which shows how Newman was attuned to and appreciative of the faith of ordinary Catholics.