Acton is probably most known for his quote: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1804-1902) was born to a wealthy English aristocrat and become a brilliant scholar. He was Victorian England's most renowned historian and political thinker. Acton was a Roman Catholic educated under the Catholic historian Ignaz von Dollinger in Munich. Acton found the idea of Papal Infallibility to be appalling. To Acton, holding the Vatican on a pedestal as the infallible arbiter of religious and moral conscience was detrimental to the cause of liberty. Acton was a classical liberal who seems to possess the prescriptive wisdom and prudence of Edmund Burke when it comes to politics.

This collection of essays and commentary features a selection of Acton's thoughts on the interrelation between church and state, religion, politics and morality. The first section features essays on Liberal Catholicism; the second section includes Acton's commentary on the Vatican Council; and the third section features Perspectives on History, Religion and Morality. The fourth and final section features an intriguing collection of quotations on various topics like Liberty, Conscience, Church, Democracy, Federalism, Nationality, Property and Socialism to name a few. This final section makes the book very useful resource for Acton's witticisms. I don't wholeheartedly embrace all of the ideas of Acton, but this book is nonetheless an eye-openning window into European Old Whig political thought during the 19th century.