Steve Wood's, "Christian Fatherhood" has had a continuing and growing influence on me. Having been married fourteen years, my wife and I have had our share of challenges. The wisdom and charity within this book has helped me be a more loving husband, a better father and has given me the confidence to teach my faith to my children.

Steve Wood and James Burnham have hit the nail on the head. They have identified the critical areas where fathers become either successes or failures. If you're a young father and want to know how to be a great father - this is the book for you. If you're an old father - and want validation for what you did right and identification for where you went wrong - this is the book for you.

The critical areas they deal with involve devotion to God, to Church, and to family. They show how to love and be faithful to your wife. They show how to love your children, and it's spelled T-I-M-E. They show the necessity of rightly ordering family life so that it aims at more than this family's life.

Having observed both Mr. Wood and Mr. Burnham's families, I can say that they practice what they preach and their children (while giving the struggles to their parents that is ordinary) are happy, healthy, and holy. The happiness of their wives and the marvels that are their childrens are astoundingly powerful testimonies of the truth they speak in this book.

FACT: Four out of ten American children will go to bed tonight in a home without their fathers (Blankenhorn, David, Fatherless America, 1995).

FACT: About 90 percent of single-parent homes are without a father. (U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Poverty in the U.S.: 1992")

FACT: Seventy percent of long-term prison inmates come from homes where the father wasn't present. ("Family Values Gain Control," The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 1995, p. A6)

So go the statistics...Drawing from the Bible and works such as Pope Pius XI's, Christian Marriage (Casti Connubii), Pope Paul VI's, Of Human Life (Humanae Vitae), and John Paul II's, The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World (Familiaris Consortio) and Letter to Families, former Protestant minister turned Catholic, Steve Wood, offers 8 practical commitments that fathers can make to ensure they will leave a positive, lasting mark on their children and their children's children.

Wood takes the "Eight Commitments of the St. Joseph Covenant Keepers" and goes into much greater depth on them than he has in his audiotapes or brochures. Those commitments include: - Affirming Christ's Lordship Over Our Families - Following St. Joseph, the Loving Leader and Head of the Holy Family - Loving Our Wives All Our Lives - Turning Our Heart Toward Our Children - Educating Our Children in the Discipline and Instruction of the Lord - Protecting Our Families - Providing for Our Families - Building Our Marriages and Families on the "Rock"

Wood effectively uses Scripture, secular statistics, and papal encyclicals to provide practical things that fathers can do to build solid marriages and secure families. The book shows how desperately fathers are needed in a world which seems to say that they are not.

Any father wondering how he can raise a faithful family needs to own a copy of this book.

Burnham began his career in political activism as a Trotskyite communist and became a very committed anti-communist. Like Buckley, Burnham, in the sixties and seventies particularly, provided intellectual fortification for the conservative movement.

        First published in the early sixties, Suicide of the West is a withering indictment of liberalism. Far from serving as a bulwark against communism, liberalism, Burnham shows, is the ideology of Western suicide, communism in its preliminary stage. Though Soviet communism has collapsed, liberalism remains, and as long as it does, Suicide of the West should be read by conservatives.

This book was written in 1964 but is as relevant (if not more so) today than it was when first published. Since that time, modern liberalism has moved further leftward and worldwide Communist revolutionary impulses have only marginally declined, notwithstanding the collapse of the Soviet Union. Red China is becoming the new Red menace and Russia is in the midst of potentially dangerous changes.

The very premise of this book has played out on the world scene since its writing. The liberal approach towards Communism (i.e. appeasement) in the 1970s had weakened the Western resolve to contain Communism just as Burnham predicted it would. On the other hand, the 1980s demonstrated the efficacy of the opposite approach, namely mustering the will and resources to rollback Communism. And the 1990s served to remind us all once again how ill-equipped liberalism is in containing Communism as the Red Dragon raised its ugly head and the Bear grew restless.

Burnham spends the first two-thirds of the book describing the liberal worldview in intellectual and moral terms. He begins by first outlining the major tenets of liberalism and shows from whence they arose. He then demonstrates how some of these tenets are intellectually weak due to their internal inconsistency, mutual incompatibility, and failures in application.

Burnham then shifts to the moral/psychological aspect of liberalism, specifically the role of values in liberal ideology; and the priority that liberals give to those values. He also explains the sentiments that drive the commitment to liberalism and explains how, in many cases, those sentiments are inconsistent with the intellectual tenets of liberalism. He also describes the powerful role guilt plays in the liberal impulse towards egalitarianism.

Especially enlightening is Burnham's contrasting of the modern liberal with the classical liberal of the 19th century. He makes the comparison by showing that many of the intellectual tenets of modern liberalism are absent from the 19th century laissez-faire version. He also describes how and why values have been inverted - namely that the modern liberal now esteems peace/security above freedom/liberty.

With the intellectual/psychological analysis of liberalism complete, Burnham then proceeds to evaluate the threat of Communism to Western Civilization. His explanation of Communism's inherent demand to achieve world dominance is superb. There is no mistaking the fact that co-existence with capitalism is simply not an option for the Communist.

But because modern liberalism shares similar egalitarian impulses with Communism, it is intellectually and morally weakened before the Red menace. In short, it is difficult to oppose Communism from the Left. There simply is too much in common to come out in direct opposition to its ideology. This is not to say that liberals support Communist tactics, although they have been among the Kremlin's chief apologists at various times (e.g. 1930s, 1960s).

Because liberals share many egalitarian goals with Communism, they become "useful idiots" for the world revolutionaries, whose interest it is to create instability in non-Communist countries. For example, it is now known (vis-à-vis post-Cold War Archives) that the Soviet Union incited and exploited much of the American civil unrest (1930s, 1960s) that liberal ideologues created in their pursuit of egalitarianism. In essence, because of an overlap in their common goals, the Communists found the modern liberal to be a useful tool for hastening the world revolution of the proletariat.

However, unlike its explicit goals, liberal sentiments are actually quite disjoint from the Communist. In fact, the differences in sentiments are what permit Communists to use liberals to further their revolutionary goals. For example, the liberal's quest for peace is not the same as the Communist's. The Communist sees peace as the calm arising out of a world free of capitalism. It does not mean peace achieved by nation's agreeing to mutual co-existence. But the Communist finds the liberal's pursuit of "peace" useful in order to weaken the security of non-Communist nations.

So willingly or unwittingly, modern liberals, especially from the West, are essentially useless when it comes to halting the Communist quest to dominate and eventually overthrow non-communist systems. Their perspective prevents them from confronting the non-rational ideological menace with the only principle it understands -- force.

Only a hard-line stance (as Ronald Reagan promoted) and proactive measures will put a check on an ideology that has world domination as its ultimate goal. This lesson has been demonstrated once as a result of the Cold War outcome. And one can only hope and pray that the lesson will not be forgotten. Because if it is, the West will indeed commit suicide and be delivered into the hands of International Communism.

I can't give this book the review it deserves. Truth is I read it 11 years ago and would mangle it if i tried to get specific. But it is absolutely a must-read for people who are vaguely certain that there is something wrong with the dominant trends in 20th century western social thought, but can't elucidate their thoughts. I read this book quite by accident the year after i finished college, and the memory of the thrill i felt is still with me. Suicide of the West will challenge and provoke, excite and inspire. It will send you to the library: you'll read 10 more books because of it. Read this book.

Samuel Francis is the premier theoretician of the paleoconservative movement and has for years studied and applied the thought of James Burnham to today's politics.

Burnham was unique among conservative thinkers. Unlike conservatives who based their theories on religion, tradition, or natural law, Burnham was rigorously empirical in his approach to political problems. Nonetheless, this led him to conservative conclusions. Heavily influence by the so-called "realist school" of politics (Machiavelli, Michels and Pareto), Burnham sought to discover universal laws of politics and apply them to foreign policy and cultural change.

This is an enjoyable introduction to Burnham's thought and a model of organization. Francis discusses Burnham's overall philosophy and analyzes his thought chronologically, book by book. Francis also refutes a couple claims widely made about Burnham. First, he shows that (contrary to Rothbard) Burnham did devote considerable time to objecting to the growth of state power. Although Burnham was hardly a libertarian or even a minimal government conservative, he was generally supportive of free enterprise and limited government. Second, contrary to contemporary neoconservatives (and libertarian foreign policy writer Justin Raimondo), Burnham was not a proto-neocon. Burnham supported an "interventionist" foreign policy to fight the Soviet Union and communism, but his writings in this area can hardly be seen as a blueprint for a neocon New World Order.

This book should be supplemented by Kelly's recently published biography of Burnham, JAMES BURNHAM AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WORLD, which presents the neocon "take" on Burnham.

Written by medical research consultant Virginia Burham in collaboration with psychiatrist William H. Hampton), Knowing Yourself is a self-help book that focuses on learning more about oneself, and using that knowledge and wisdom to improve both one's own lot and that of others. Individual chapters address distinctions in the self between men and women; aspects of sexuality; the workings of the brain; the makeup of personality, and more. A fascinating and involving read that embraces the classic wisdom of Socrates himself when he said, "Know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves, but otherwise we never shall.", Knowing Yourself is an especially commended addition to Self-Help/Self-Improvement reading lists.

I think it's interesting that the above reviewer feels that Burnham has no axe to grind. A quick review of most of Burnham's other works will quickly reveal his personal philosophy. This book is a very good review of several politically-conservative writers (Dante, Machiavelli, Mosca, Sorel, Michels, and Pareto), and yes, several of them are political scientists. Most of the recent writers do attempt to be objective, but there are several prominent liberal political scientists who can back their work with numbers, as well.

This is a good review of the beforementioned writers' works. It can be dry and dull at times, but it is a work of philosophy and occasionally statistical science, so this is to be expected. Where the book begins to break down is in the last section, where Burnham's views begin to be expressed in his own words. He begins a tirade against anyone who doesn't agree with his opinions, and declares the triumph of Machiavellism (one gets the feeling that he considers himself a Machiavellian, and has grouped in with himself any writer whose views he happens to agree with; there is not necessarily much cohesion between the various writers included) much the way a schoolboy would declare himself "king of the mountain". His "science" is rarely backed up, and his "philosophy" is poorly thought out. That said, I happen to agree with the worldview that most of these writers share, and they are vigorous scholars. This book is definitely worth reading if you are interested in conservative political philosophy, or are interested in the writing of one of more of the writers mentioned.

... Georges Sorel would be rather surprised to hear himself called a "conservative," as he was actually a radical left-wing syndicalist who advocated the use of violence to bring down capitalism, a fact to which Burnham alludes. Moreover, far from agreeing with Dante, Burnham makes mincemeat out of him.

The "Machiavellian" writers Burnham discusses span a rather diverse spectrum of views (with Machiavelli and Pareto the only ones who could be called "conservative" in any real sense). What they have in common is an objective, scientific approach to politics that avoids allowing wishful thinking, or ideas about what ought to be, to impede their discernment of what is.

I disagreed with Burnham's tendency to dismiss religious ideas as inherently irrationalist. Also, his clarification in response to Machiavelli's reputation ignores the fact that Machiavelli did, after all, offer some amoral advice, not just non-moral analysis. While some of Burnhams predictions proved correct only in the short run, his method contains within itself the the capacity for self-correction, which is part of the whole point of the book.

This book remains a must-read for all who seek to develop a scientific understanding of politics, regardless of their philosophical persuasion.

It is scandalous that this book should be out of print, for it is without a doubt the best primer on political science ever written. If you are going to read only one book on politics, this should be it. Burnham is no ideologue with an axe to grind. He merely seeks to describe how politics works in the real world of fact. In pursuit of this aim, he discusses five of the most scientifically rigorous of all political thinkers: Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Robert Michels, and Georges Sorel. Together, these thinkers represent, according to Burnham, the Machiavellian tradition in political thought. Machiavellians, Burnham tells us, regard politics as a science devoted to describing facts as they really are, not as one may wish them to be.

In a certain sense, I can understand why this book is out of print. Realism in politics is hardly popular. What most people seek for in political theory is not reality but a rationalization for their own wishful thinking.

James Burnham's useful little volume, originally published in 1964, is not so much a book about the impending death of Western civilization as it is a treatise against liberalism and the sins of liberals.

Burnham justifies the book's title by tying liberal domination to what he recognizes as the mortal peril in which Western civilization finds itself, but he is reserved enough to state in the end that liberals and liberalism are not the cause of the decline of Western civilization but the cause of the West's suicidal reconciliation to its decline and of its failure to take restorative measures.

And Burnham takes a balanced historical approach which is incompatible with that of the polemicist. He discusses the history of liberalism, starting with the early days, during which liberalism indeed represented advocacy of human liberty and ending with the post-New Deal era, in which liberalism has come to mean liberty for liberals only and servitude for everyone else.

The ugly double standards that liberals practice when distinguishing "us" from "them" are elaborated on, as is the liberal enshrinement of all allies on the left, including Communist dictators, no matter how dangerous or offensive, and demonization of all opponents on the right, no matter how inefficacious. Political correctness and affirmative action are exposed here, even though these phrases have not yet become part of the American lexicon.

For while the themes are familiar, this book was written in an era that seems quite removed from that which we live in now - in the shadow of JFK's death and prior to Khrushchev's ouster and to the Tonkin Resolution which expanded America's role in Vietnam. It was also written at a time when the unsuccessful Goldwater presidential campaign, which would spawn Ronald Reagan's successful one, had not yet taken shape.

The book therefore provides valuable historical perspective at the dawn of some of liberalism's most significant influences, as well as the ascendancy of conservatism as an impotent political force.

Burnham doesn't score 100% on the "crystal ball" test. His pessimism about the virtual invulnerability of communism and the need for American resolve to defeat it rings naïve today. Since the end of World War II and the invention of the Bomb, Americans were probably always too fat, dumb and happy to be willing to die in large numbers to prevail over the Soviets, ever preferring to believe that freedom is free. But Soviet communism turned out to have enough of its own fatal defects so as to render unnecessary the need for American resolve.

Nevertheless, in other respects, Burnham demonstrates impressive forethought in writing this volume. His conclusion that contemporary liberalism, by nature, is incapable of governing or of using timely military force in appropriate amounts very much anticipates the Clinton and Carter administrations, even if Burnham can't quite anticipate the Clinton War Room or scandal-driven military strikes or any of the extraordinary acts of destruction that liberals would actually turn out to be willing to commit in order to acquire and maintain power for its own sake.

As Burnham is writing, some of the worst evils of liberalism haven't yet taken shape. The liberals, especially RFK, haven't yet performed their cynical "about face" maneuver on Vietnam; They haven't yet completely poisoned American civilization with obscene, mindless, standard-less, witless, indulgent entertainment and pop-culture therapy, masquerading as empowerment, self-fulfillment, and individualist expression. They haven't yet made infanticide a constitutional right. They haven't yet led female and homosexual minions to war against the traditional heterosexual male ethos, nor have they secured their political future by unleashing on America's borders countless numbers of undocumented aliens to assault American civilization in the name of "multiculturalism".

Yet Burnham's relentless analysis lays bare the intellectual bankruptcy and moral shortcomings of even the 1964 class of liberals. And the examples that he provides of liberal intellectuals savaging human lives in order to score ideological points anticipate the even more destructive childlike New Class of liberals that will arise later in his decade and rule into the 21st century.

But Burnham ultimately fails in the same way that other conservatives have been failing since his time. He does not call for the eradication of liberalism. Instead, he argues that a liberal spirit of innovation is desirable to enact needed social reforms and that conservatives are needed to govern them. Unfortunately, this is a slippery slope that conservatives tend to fall into quite often - giving up the ghost of past battles by venerating liberal reforms and politicos that they rightfully assailed a generation earlier.

Witness the way in which America's most prominent conservative now tries to put a "compassionate" female-friendly multicultural face on conservatism - the better with which to "conserve" the evils already wrought.

"We don't want to repeal Title IX," conservatives plead regarding a wicked law whose name and face belong on a "Wanted" poster. "Title IX is GOOD! We only want it enforced in accordance with its ORIGINAL INTENT." Oh my God!

Such actions cause conservatives to slide into hollows designed by liberal troglodytes, such as the late Herbert Block. "Half a step, half a step," a mocking Herblock once had Dwight Eisenhower plead Father Time in one cartoon. "You keep marching too fast."

And if the only function of conservatives is not to combat liberal reforms but only to manage or trim them, conservatism scarcely seems worth the trouble and expense of maintenance, and the Herblocks of the world are indeed entitled to a laugh at conservatives' expense, ridiculing them for always being a half step behind.

Nine years after National Review's inception in 1955, Burnham has already tragically moved away from the publication's stated purpose of standing athwart history yelling "Stop", and he sets the stage for others to move even further away. Neither he nor they understand that conservatism and its advocates will not be worth a damn until they obtain the will and the wherewithal to put Father Time in a headlock and march him firmly BACKWARD.

This book was written in 1964 but is as relevant (if not more so) today than it was when first published. Since that time, modern liberalism has moved further leftward and worldwide Communist revolutionary impulses have only marginally declined, notwithstanding the collapse of the Soviet Union. Red China is becoming the new Red menace and Russia is in the midst of potentially dangerous changes.

The very premise of this book has played out on the world scene since its writing. The liberal approach towards Communism (i.e. appeasement) in the 1970s had weakened the Western resolve to contain Communism just as Burnham predicted it would. On the other hand, the 1980s demonstrated the efficacy of the opposite approach, namely mustering the will and resources to rollback Communism. And the 1990s served to remind us all once again how ill-equipped liberalism is in containing Communism as the Red Dragon raised its ugly head and the Bear grew restless.

Burnham spends the first two-thirds of the book describing the liberal worldview in intellectual and moral terms. He begins by first outlining the major tenets of liberalism and shows from whence they arose. He then demonstrates how some of these tenets are intellectually weak due to their internal inconsistency, mutual incompatibility, and failures in application.

Burnham then shifts to the moral/psychological aspect of liberalism, specifically the role of values in liberal ideology; and the priority that liberals give to those values. He also explains the sentiments that drive the commitment to liberalism and explains how, in many cases, those sentiments are inconsistent with the intellectual tenets of liberalism. He also describes the powerful role guilt plays in the liberal impulse towards egalitarianism.

Especially enlightening is Burnham's contrasting of the modern liberal with the classical liberal of the 19th century. He makes the comparison by showing that many of the intellectual tenets of modern liberalism are absent from the 19th century laissez-faire version. He also describes how and why values have been inverted - namely that the modern liberal now esteems peace/security above freedom/liberty.

With the intellectual/psychological analysis of liberalism complete, Burnham then proceeds to evaluate the threat of Communism to Western Civilization. His explanation of Communism's inherent demand to achieve world dominance is superb. There is no mistaking the fact that co-existence with capitalism is simply not an option for the Communist.

But because modern liberalism shares similar egalitarian impulses with Communism, it is intellectually and morally weakened before the Red menace. In short, it is difficult to oppose Communism from the Left. There simply is too much in common to come out in direct opposition to its ideology. This is not to say that liberals support Communist tactics, although they have been among the Kremlin's chief apologists at various times (e.g. 1930s, 1960s).

Because liberals share many egalitarian goals with Communism, they become "useful idiots" for the world revolutionaries, whose interest it is to create instability in non-Communist countries. For example, it is now known (vis-à-vis post-Cold War Archives) that the Soviet Union incited and exploited much of the American civil unrest (1930s, 1960s) that liberal ideologues created in their pursuit of egalitarianism. In essence, because of an overlap in their common goals, the Communists found the modern liberal to be a useful tool for hastening the world revolution of the proletariat.

However, unlike its explicit goals, liberal sentiments are actually quite disjoint from the Communist. In fact, the differences in sentiments are what permit Communists to use liberals to further their revolutionary goals. For example, the liberal's quest for peace is not the same as the Communist's. The Communist sees peace as the calm arising out of a world free of capitalism. It does not mean peace achieved by nation's agreeing to mutual co-existence. But the Communist finds the liberal's pursuit of "peace" useful in order to weaken the security of non-Communist nations.

So willingly or unwittingly, modern liberals, especially from the West, are essentially useless when it comes to halting the Communist quest to dominate and eventually overthrow non-communist systems. Their perspective prevents them from confronting the non-rational ideological menace with the only principle it understands -- force.

Only a hard-line stance (as Ronald Reagan promoted) and proactive measures will put a check on an ideology that has world domination as its ultimate goal. This lesson has been demonstrated once as a result of the Cold War outcome. And one can only hope and pray that the lesson will not be forgotten. Because if it is, the West will indeed commit suicide and be delivered into the hands of International Communism.

Burnham wrote this book in 1964, and was at that time concerned about the 'contraction' of the West and its values. In that sense, this book is somewhat dated, since more of the opposite has happened. However, what makes this book a classic is his analysis of the liberal mind. In fact, this book is what helped me to understand the confused mind-set that is characteristic of leftists. Burnham is obviously very influenced by Michael Oakeshott (author of the classic _Rationalism in Politics_); he agrees with Oakeshott's belief that two of the main characteristics of leftists are the belief in 'reason' to solve all problems and to refashion society, and its collary, the denigration of tradition. Since 'rightists' see the limitations of reason, and understand the importance of thousands of years of evolved tradition in supporting society, they of course then logically become the main enemy of leftists. Rightists usually see leftists not as evil, but merely goofy; leftists on the other hand see rightists not merely as mistaken, but as evil. This is the book that clued me in as to why these beliefs are held. For anyone interested in politcal science, this is a must-read book.

James Burnham (1905-1987) may be the "forgotten man" of the Conservative movement. Although he has been the subject of a few monographs and chapters in various books on the conservative movement, his name is not well known in the conservative world. Many who have heard of Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers and William Buckley probably know him only as a writer of apocalyptic anti-Communist books in the 50s and 60s.

Burnham's life was fascinating, and this book is a well-written, enjoyable biography. Born to a wealthy railroad executive, Burnham attended Princeton where he studied philosophy and literature. There he first became associated with Philip Wheelwright (he was also at Princeton at the same time as Cornelius van Til - another Wheelwright student -- but Kelly makes no mention of whether they were acquainted). He attended Oxford where he met Tolkien and Brand Blanshard. In the 1930s, Burnham became a Communist (of sorts) and an advisor to Leon Trotsky. In the late 1930s, Burnham rejected Communism and ultimately became a conservative. He even worked for the CIA for a few years.

Burnham began writing for National Review from its inception in 1954 where most of his writing concerned foreign policy and winning the Cold War. Burnham continued with National Review until he suffered a stroke in 1977, which impaired his short-term memory.

Burnham is not easy to pigeonhole. He was neither a member of the Old Right nor the Neocon Right, but shared characteristics of both. While sympathetic to free enterprise, he wasn't a doctrinaire believer in laissez faire. He rejected isolationism, but his internationalism was largely limited to anti-Communism. For example, he opposed US involvement in the Middle East.

Burnham's views on Congressional supremacy, his partial support for Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his views on racial matters would place him, broadly speaking, on the paleconservative spectrum. Burnham rejected neoconservatism when it first appeared as a distinct ideology in the 70s and his last public appearance, in 1983, was to accept an award from The Ingersoll Foundation, which is associated with a paleoconservative think-tank. In light of all this, it is a stretch for Mr. Kelly to suggest that Burnham was a proto-neoconservative.

Burnham's book is a fine history of the slow degeneration of Congress as an institution, from it's beginnings as the heart of our gov't, to it's present state as an irritating side show that mainly serves to siphon public money off to various local interests. That, in fact, is one of the things Burnham defends, and this is the book's primary flaw. While it gives a fine account of the creeping imperialism of the executive branch, it offers nothing but jeremiads. The practical solutions to this problem, such as making Congress larger, are not seriously considered. Worse yet is the author's tendency to defend the more backward aspects of Congressional life, such as special interest politics. It is all well and good to say that Congress defends the rights of the few against the many and stands in the path of mob tyrannny, but it is undeniable that it is all to often a leech that exists only to expropriate the wealth of one segment of society and pass it on to another. Burnham's blind allegience to outworn gov't mechanisms is his great flaw. The first principles he adheres to are as valid as ever, but they need a new embodiement more suited to our own times and troubles. Romantic nostalgia for the days of Webster and Calhoun is counterproductive.