James Chappel

James Chappel is the Hunt Family Assistant Professor of History at Duke University. He is the author of Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church (Harvard University Press, 2018).

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Article

The Rock and the Peregrine

John McGreevy’s book is a gripping history of the modern Catholic Church, an institution at once a stolid purveyor of tradition and an agent of revolutionary change.

By James Chappel

November 15, 2022

Secularism and Modernity

Article

The Enlightenment We Need

In an era of looming climate apocalypse and aimless elites, the Enlightenment has the potential to anchor projects of social emancipation and ecological sanity

By James Chappel

November 8, 2018

Secularism and Modernity

Article

Out of Touch

George Weigel resurrects an antiquated and narrow form of Catholicism at a historical moment when the future of the church is in crisis.

By James Chappel

September 5, 2019

Secularism and Modernity

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