Allen Tate and the Catholic Revival: Trace of the Fugitive Gods by Peter A. Huff (review)

156BOOK REVIEWS tangled up f. 151),writing of"father provincial at Fordham" and"the father general ofthe university."But these are minor matters in an overaU satisfactory study. James Hennesey Syracuse, New York Allen Tate and the Catholic Revival: Trace of the Fugitive Gods. By Peter A. Huff. [Isaac Hecker Studies in Religion and American Culture.] (Mahwah, New Jersey: PauUst Pres. 1996. Pp. xv, 159. $14.95 paperback.) Allen Tate (1899-1979) was perhaps twentieth-century American Catholicism 's most notable Uterary convert, foreordained by some CathoUc enthusiasts at the time of his 1950 conversion as "their century's Newman." By demonstrating that the values of the CathoUc inteUectuaI renaissance of the 1920's and 1930's both inspired the conversion and enlarged the aesthetic and moral vision of one ofAmerica's leading men of letters, Peter A. Huff again upholds the necessity of treating the CathoUc Revival as an important and distinct twentieth-century inteUectuaI event. Huff's approach is both Uterary and historical. Chapter 1 presents a concise overview of the revival in both its European andAmerican contexts. Chapters 2 and 3 address the youngTate'sVanderbilt University years,his leadership in the restorationist Southern Agrarian Movement, and Tate's own attribution of the modern dilemma to the inteUectuaI and moral ambiguity of his ageTate's evolving inteUectuaI encounter with the ideas of Christopher Dawson, G. K. Chesterton ,T. S. EUot and other conservative Roman and Anglo-CathoUc critics is also explored. Chapter 4 Ulustrates the impact of the CathoUc Revival upon Tate's own reUgious and Uterary imagination and his self-conscious embrace of the role of CathoUc critic.The final chapter relates Tate's uneasy personal and professional relationship with a changing postconcUiar Church. There is much that is original in this book. It is the first systematic analysis of the relationship between the CathoUc Revival and an American Uterary inteUectual .Tate himself serves as an interesting organizing figure through which Huff addresses the many diverse elements ofthe revival—inteUectuaI,cultural,and aesthetic . By focusing upon Tate, Huff brings a welcome element of concreteness to the revival which heretofore has received scholarly attention only in its broadest cultural forms. No longer an isolated parochial event,Tate links the revival to some of the most important conservative movements of the modern era. Of particular interest to scholars is Huff's original treatment of the "CathoUc sources ofTate's Agrarianism." Huffdemonstrates that the relationship was sympathetic , personal, and coUaborative, as southern traditionaUsts such asTate and John Crowe Ransom utilized elements of CathoUc social thought, papal pronouncements upon subsidiarity and the common good, and the decentraUst ideas of CathoUc agrarians loosely associated with the Chesterton-led EngUsh BOOK REVIEWS157 distributist movement to enlarge their own critique of modern mass culture and to defend the southern way of Life. The profound impact of the Neo-Thomist revival and its chief interpreter to America, Jacques Maritain, is also noted.Thomism's impact upon preconciUar American lay CathoUc inteUectuals has long been clear.Tate was simUarly impressed ; as an inteUectuaI systemThomism informedTate's Uterary theory,deepened his social analysis, and eventuaUy shaped his New Criticism. This is a richly thoughtful book and it broadens our perspective of the impact of the Catholic Uterary revival in America. The latest scholarship on the CathoUc Revival,AUenTate studies, and the Southern Agrarian Movement is evident throughout.The author's clear and uncluttered prose makes this volume accessible to readers with only limited backgrounds in the subject. Arnold Sparr St. Francis College, Brooklyn, New York Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth Century Urban North. By JohnT. McGreevy. [Historical Studies ofUrban America .] (Chicago:The University of Chicago Press. 1996. Pp. vi, 362. $27.50.) Parish Boundaries, winner of the 1996 John GUmary Shea Prize, is a remarkable accompUshment. InteUectuaI and social history of the highest order, the book examines the painful confrontation of mid-century urban "white" Catholics (i.e., assimilating second-and third-generation Euro-American ethnic groups) and the African-Americans who migrated en masse to the North in 1940's.When blacks sought inner-city housing and threatened property values, Jews and white Protestants yielded, and fled, more readUy than did...