In 1931, preeminent historian and scholar Christopher Dawson commissioned a new series (titled Essays in Order), whose purpose was, in part, ?to examine the possibilities of cooperation and of conflict that exist between the Catholic order and the new world.? The world was ?passing through one of the most critical moments in its history,? and those who hold to and hand on the Catholic faith must respond to the moment with ?moral sympathy and intellectual comprehension.? Identifying the leading voices of the Catholic academy and literary circles, Dawson engaged such luminaries as Jacques Maritain, François Mauriac, Theodore Haecker, and Thomas Gilby, to develop a renaissance of Catholic thought in the face of a darkening age.The Persistence of Order comprises fourteen of those commissioned essays, published across three volumes. The first volume contains Jacques Maritain?s ?Religion and Culture?; Peter Wust?s ?Crisis in the West?; Ida Friederike Coudenhove?s ?Nature of Sanctity?; and Dawson?s own ?Christianity and the New Age.? Each with its own distinctive style and approach, the essays speak to the vital role of religion and culture in the development of civilization and the flourishing of the human person.