The Unbroken Thread, Sohrab Ahmari
The Unbroken Thread, Sohrab Ahmari
2 Rating(s)
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
Club: $10.00

The Unbroken Thread
Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos

Author: Sohrab Ahmari

Narrator: Sohrab Ahmari

Unabridged: 9 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/11/2021

Synopsis

We’ve pursued and achieved the modern dream of defining ourselves—but at what cost? An influential columnist and editor makes a compelling case for seeking the inherited traditions and ideals that give our lives meaning.

“Ahmari’s tour de force makes tradition astonishingly vivid and relevant for the here and now.”—Rod Dreher, bestselling author of Live Not by Lies and The Benedict Option

As a young father and a self-proclaimed “radically assimilated immigrant,” opinion editor Sohrab Ahmari realized that when it comes to shaping his young son’s moral fiber, today’s America is woefully lacking. For millennia, the world’s great ethical and religious traditions have taught that true happiness lies in pursuing virtue and accepting limits. But now, unbound from these stubborn traditions, we are free to choose whichever way of life we think is most optimal—or, more often than not, merely the easiest. All that remains are the fickle desires that a wealthy, technologically advanced society is equipped to fulfill.

The result is a society riven by deep conflict and individual lives that, for all their apparent freedom, are marked by alienation and stark unhappiness.

In response to this crisis, Ahmari offers twelve questions for us to grapple with—twelve timeless, fundamental queries that challenge our modern certainties. Among them: Is God reasonable? What is freedom for? What do we owe our parents, our bodies, one another? Exploring each question through the lives and ideas of great thinkers, from Saint Augustine to Howard Thurman and from Abraham Joshua Heschel to Andrea Dworkin, Ahmari invites us to examine the hidden assumptions that drive our behavior and, in doing so, to live more humanely in a world that has lost its way.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Murtaza on January 17, 2022

An eloquent primer to the enduring importance of traditional values like belief in God, observance of the Sabbath, and norms to govern sexual life, using the lives of a number thinkers whom Ahmari finds inspiring to illustrate each point. The chapters about Solzhenitsyn, Seneca the Younger, Andrea D......more

Goodreads review by Scriptor Ignotus on July 24, 2021

Alright, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Tradition is an elusive concept, so defending it in the abstract seemed like a tall order—especially for an op-ed writer. When the first chapter turned out to be about C.S. Lewis, I worried that the whole book would retread familiar ground. But no......more

Goodreads review by Julie on August 19, 2021

Holy moly, what a great book! Sohrab Ahmari wrote this book for his 2-year-old son, Max, after he began worrying about what sort of man Max would become when formed by our modern culture. Max is named for Maximilian Kolbe, a great saint of the 20th century. Ahmari thought about the gap between our cu......more

Goodreads review by Joel on June 12, 2021

This is a brisk book, confident of where it is going and not presuming on its reader. He writes like a reporter: he does what he needs to to make his point and that is all. I have more than passing acquaintance with many of the thinkers sketched in these chapters, and if Ahmari got anything importan......more

Goodreads review by Paul on May 16, 2021

The book is outstanding. A grateful immigrant's fears for the culture of his new country and how it will chisel the character or soul of his little son. He draws brilliantly on the lives and worldviews of his representative characters, drawn from across the political and ideological spectrum, to def......more

Quotes

“A formidable combination of storytelling and philosophy that might change your life.”—The Times

“[Ahmari] is a master storyteller. . . . Readers of Sohrab Ahmari’s new book will be grateful to him for reminding us of how serious the loss [of our traditions] could turn out to be.”—First Things

“Ahmari’s elegantly written book matters because it seeks to give moral voice to what so far has mainly been a populist scream against the values of elite liberalism.”—Bret Stephens, The New York Times

“A vital and provocative read.”—The Telegraph

“Even those who reject Ahmari’s categories and conclusions will still admire and be edified by the stories he has to tell.”—National Review

“A triumph of intellectual hagiography that leads the reader confidently into deep waters.”—Commentary

“He frames the questions we all need to ponder and identifies many topics that families and religious leaders need to address—the sooner, the better.”—The New Criterion

“Ahmari’s latest book presents compelling critiques of the modern understanding of human freedom.”—The American Conservative

“Ahmari’s prose is always clear, and he manages to articulate sophisticated arguments without ever sounding academic or getting lost in minutia.”—Washington Examiner

“Ahmari introduces a generation (and more) to the spiritual patrimony of which they have been robbed.”—Spectator World

“The urgent need for this work cannot be doubted.”—National Catholic Register

“The quality that makes [Ahmari] a valuable thinker for our current moment is the same one that made him write this book in the way that he did: his willingness to take risks.”—City Journal

“Sohrab Ahmari offers more than a vivid and learned defense of traditionalism. With fatherly love, he leads his son—and us—on a fearless consideration of life’s big questions.”—Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York

“A serious—and seriously readable—book about the deep questions that our shallow age has foolishly tried to dodge.”—Douglas Murray, bestselling author of The Madness of Crowds

“A unique and hopeful book that reminds us that the human person is made for great and beautiful things—far more than the vision of life offered by our society today.”—Most Reverend José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List