Matthew Maguire is Associate Professor of History and Catholic Studies at DePaul University and author of The Conversion of Imagination: From Pascal Through Rousseau to Tocqueville.

• IntroductionChapter 1. Modernity, Antimodernity, and BeyondChapter 2. His YouthChapter 3. An Answer to the Question: What Is Modernity?Chapter 4. The Revolution of CritiqueChapter 5. Revolutions of the Body and WorkChapter 6. Continuity and Revolution: War and HonorChapter 7. Universal Particulars, Particular UniversalitiesChapter 8. Mysticism and PoliticsChapter 9. The Style of Infinite RealityChapter 10. The Christian RevolutionChapter 11. Despair and ExaltationConclusionNotesIndexAcknowledgments

"[D]ensely argued, empathetic . . . Matthew Maguire deftly addresses such subjects as Péguy's socialism, which had nothing to do with Karl Marx, but derived from an earlier Gallic source, Charles Fourier, who prophesised a pleasure-based society where libido was a motivating element in work and societal interactions." (Catholic Herald) "[A]n excellent, thorough, engaging critical biography . . . In Carnal Spirit,, Matthew Maguire maps Péguy's complex intellectual world in fin-de-siècle Paris . . . We need, Maguire calls out from the text, a thinker like Péguy who 'upholds the legitimacy of embodied and particular lives, individual and communal, as well as the demands of universal justice and the dignity of all human beings.' And he is right." (French History) "Matthew W. Maguire's mastery of Charles Péguy's voluminous writings is impressive. His book will bring certain contemporary questions into sharp relief, not least the new forms of totalization and control whose early versions Péguy detected at the turn of the twentieth century." (Annette Aronowicz, author of Jews and Christians on Time and Eternity: Charles Péguy's Portrait of Bernard-Lazare)