Bush, a big fan, awarded Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in December 2006. The many sides of his versatile mind are exemplified by the wide range of his writing. In the United States, his Birth of the Modern, Intellectuals, A History of the Jews, A History of Christianity, A History of the American People, have commanded large audiences and remain in print. President George W. Since the publication of that work, Johnson has been recognized as one of the world’s most distinguished and popular historian/journalists. The breadth of his knowledge is amazing, and he has the remarkable ability to transform complex topics into wonderfully lucid prose. Interestingly, Johnson’s argument that Albert Einstein’s scientific theory of relativity (and the relativistic moral theories many were glad to draw from it) was “the principal formative influence on the course of a century of history it formed a knife…to help cut society adrift from its traditional moorings in the faith and morals of Judeo-Christian culture” struck a cord with enough Americans to push Modern Times to the top of the Times best-seller list.

Reading Nisbet’s essay, I wondered why the Times agreed to print it on the front page. After all, the book’s premise that “statism along with moral relativism the crowning disease of the twentieth century, even in the democracies” couldn’t possibly be anything but anathema to the editors. Paul Johnson first came to my attention on Sunday, Jwhen The New York Times Book Review published Robert Nisbet’s extraordinary notice of Johnson’s work Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties.

Paul johnson modern times review