A Retrieval

The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos by Sohrab Ahmari

Sohrab Ahmari questions the ideological presuppositions that undergird and inform the modern West. His misgivings have become more urgent in recent years, since the birth of his son. “I have come to believe that the very modes of life and thinking that strike most people in the West as antiquated or ‘limiting’ can liberate us,” he writes, “while the Western dream of autonomy and choice without limits is, in fact, a prison.”

As an immigrant from Persia, Ahmari is not ungrateful to the West for offering him refuge from the stifling oppression of revolutionary Iran. Yet, as a recent Catholic convert and father, he is compelled to ask whether a society that actively removes every barrier to individual appetites is a good environment in which to raise a family. The Unbroken Thread intends to resolve this father’s dilemma:

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John M. Vella has served as the editor of Crisis magazine and the managing editor of Modern Age: A Quarterly Review


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