The Christian Century

William Cavanaugh of DePaul Uni­versity has written a pair of stunningly important books. On the basis of careful, detailed historical scholarship, he makes a clear and persuasive argument for overturning a founding myth of the modern Western state. In the title of his first book, he deliberately uses the term myth in a double sense: myth as a legitimating founding narrative for modern Western states and myth as a story that is manifestly false in light of careful study and thus a false founding narrative.