St Augustine

Ryan Topping's book on Augustine is an essential addition to a series on great educational thinkers. He shows convincingly how Augustine defends a Christian liberal education, a unique synthesis of pagan rhetorical techniques and Christian spirituality, whose Christian character is seen in its valuing of truth, its emphasis on love, and its cheerfulness. Topping's analysis of Augustine's influence is realistic, identifying limitations as well as strengths in his educational philosophy. This realism strengthens the application of Augustinian ideas to contemporary debates about the university.

Ryan Topping's new book on St. Augustine is not so much a book about this famous saint as it is a treasury of insightful meditations on the state of higher education, especially Catholic higher education, and what the future of Catholic studies may be.

Ryan N.S. Topping, who has distinguished himself as an authority on St. Augustine with his monograph on happiness and wisdom in Augustine's early theology, is a welcome guide to properly approaching the great but often elusive Bishop of Hippo. Topping's writing is eloquent yet accessible, and his mastery of the subject extends not only to Augustine but to the cultural and intellectual milieu of our own day which - because it often complicates a dispassionate retrieval of Augustine's thought - must also be addressed.

In the company of St Augustine, Ryan Topping does battle with the skepticism that denies education its proper role in the pursuit of happiness and makes of it instead an exercise in apathy. Those who hope for something better from education can discover it in Augustine, and this pithy volume will go a long way to help them discover Augustine himself.