The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World
By John O'Sullivan. Regnery (Washington, 2006) 360 pp., $27.95.

The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West
By Robert Royal. Encounter Books (New York, 2006) 311 pp., $25.95.

Walking into a bookstore these days can turn a person into a skeptic rather quickly. The never-ending aisles of fad self-help books, tawdry tell-alls and political jeremiads --- back covers packed with gushing praise --- all make it clear that separating wheat from chaff when it comes to reading has grown decidedly more difficult of late.

That is why it is a relief to see that books are still being written by people who have some level of expertise in their fields. John O'Sullivan's "The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World" and Robert Royal's "The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West" are two examples.

O'Sullivan's volume is a dense historical narrative, a play-by-play of the interactions of three seminal characters in the story of the defeat of Soviet communism --- U.S. President Ronald Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Polish-born Pope John Paul II. Ample anecdotes and the writer's zeal for the personalities behind sweeping historical developments keep the enterprise from sinking beneath the weight of detail.

Indeed, O'Sullivan's work is particularly timely for at least two reasons. First, because the recent publication of excerpts from the diaries Reagan kept as president has prompted an overdue reappraisal of the man and his time in office, and second, because the collapse of Soviet communism is so often taken for granted these days. Indeed, in the time of Islamist terrorism, it is hard to imagine the former Soviet Union being public enemy No. 1.

But it was not a foregone conclusion that Soviet communism would be on the losing side of history. And that is what makes O'Sullivan's study so enlivening --- it reminds us that history is lived without knowing what happens next.

O'Sullivan concludes, "In all three cases --- Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul --- it is a spiritual element that best explains them and their achievements. All three, in subtly different ways, taught and embodied the virtue of hope."

Royal's history --- like that of O'Sullivan --- is fundamentally a story of great individuals, epochal figures such as Socrates, Plato, Virgil, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Descartes, Rousseau and the like.

This approach proves more problematic in "The God That Did Not Fail," however. Royal's discussion of individuals --- of Virgil, for instance --- is fascinating, and his ability to place thinkers within contemporary currents of thought and politics is remarkable. On the other hand, so much historical detail and tangential discussion will likely leave many readers at sea with regard to Royal's main thesis.

What is this thesis? It is an assertion that religion is inseparable from the development of what we know as Western civilization.

Understandably, Royal's volume is more academic in tone than "The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister." And while the author does his best to keep the narrative flowing, at times "The God That Did Not Fail" frankly feels more like an extended academic lecture than a book.

Yet for those readers not intimidated by the historical heft of the volume, Royal offers something truly unique --- an original take on the religiosity of the civilizations that gave birth to our own. Ancient Greeks and Romans come alive not just as philosophers or politicians, but as believers whose religious commitments condition their actions in every sphere. In this, Royal insists on letting ancient civilizations speak for themselves, and is ever vigilant against buying into uncritical narratives that survive solely on the basis of repetition. The volume concludes with a penetrating analysis of the contemporary period.

In any case, "The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister" and "The God That Did Not Fail" will not disappoint those looking for something more substantial than the standard summer reading fare, perhaps better suited for the coffee shop than the beach.

---CNS Brent Kallmer is a former research fellow with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Department of Social Development and World Peace and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.