Lehrman American Studies Center

A trained philosopher and intellectual historian as well as a writer of genius, C. S. Lewis was one of the most lucid, profound, and eloquent critics of the reductive scientific materialism that has helped make the twentieth century so destructive and confused. The Restitution of Man examines the conflict between scientific materialism and the Classical-Christian philosophical tradition as it has taken place since the seventeenth century. It examines Lewis's role as inheritor of and spokesman for this tradition and as an articulate opponent of reductive naturalism and "the abolition of man" that materialistic ideologies always entail. In probing the breadth of Lewis's writings, Michael Aeschliman shows why Lewis's apologetic for the Classical-Christian view of persons is a precious resource for the transmission of human sanity, ethics, and wisdom in an age that has frequently ignored or obliterated all three. This edition of Aeschlimans' acclaimed study includes a new forward by George Gilder and a new afterword by the author.