Was Orestes Brownson a religious skeptic and socialist, or was he a Roman Catholic who defended American constitutionalism? Yes. The 19th-century American intellectual seems to have adopted almost every religious, political, and economic position available to him. So there's a Brownson for everyone, and Seeking the Truth provides enough primary source material to explain the variegated appropriation of Brownson in the centuries after his death.

Thankfully, the volume's editor, Richard Reinsch II, offers a wide-ranging and insightful introductory essay to prepare the reader for these many Brownsons. In 35 brisk pages, Reinsch delivers both a concise biography and a systematic accounting of the many intellectual stages of Brownson's life. Biographically, Reinsch includes the impressive (by age 14, he had memorized most of the Bible [4]) and the poignant (he lost two sons in the Civil War [5]). Yet the introduction is no hagiography: Brownson says he suspended his quarterly review due to ill health; Reinsch fingers declining subscription rates instead (33).

Reinsch clarifies Brownson's political and religious voyage, a challenging feat, when the object of one's study moves in a straight intellectual path, but a nearly impossible achievement with as many twists and turns as Brownson took. Reinsch articulates Brownson's positions clearly, and at times — especially with the early Brownson — he does so more clearly than Brownson himself. But, in addition to the introduction, Reinsch should have provided a brief note before each selection in order to orient the reader to whatever stage in Brownson's journey the piece represents and to offer any appropriate cross-references to other selections in Seeking the Truth. Additionally, though reading Reinsch made me appreciate how important Brownson is for our contemporary American political life, I wish Reinsch had taken more space to demonstrate the benefit of studying Brownson for intellectual history, from Brownson's connection to the modern conservative movement via Russell Kirk (2) to possible influence on Dignitatis Humanae of the Second Vatican Council via John Courtney Murray (24–25). Doing so would broaden Brownson's appeal. After all, those who will never read him for political answers may still read him out of historical interest.

Brownson offer his readers tantalizing prose. “The beaver of today builds not his house with more skill, makes it not more convenient than did the beaver of four thousand years ago,” he writes. “He knows no progress. But man has outstripped his ancestors” (91). Brownson can also hurl the rhetorical hand grenade: “Since Mr. Van Buren, more incompetent men in the presidential chair we could not have had, if we had depended on the hereditary principle, than popular election has given us” (412). But, at times, his writing is unnecessarily verbose. For example, instead of saying that many monks were greedy, power-hungry hypocrites, Brownson writes, “Then were seen hordes of monks who cloaked every species of iniquity under the sacred garb of piety, constantly laboring to increase the wealth and independence of the church” (47).

An important feature of an anthology is not simply the ideas considered by themselves, but the relationship of the author's ideas to each other. Here Seeking the Truth succeeds marvelously, even though Brownson makes this task both easier and more difficult. It's easier, because one can assume that an earlier Brownson has nothing to say to a later Brownson. They simply disagree. But it's also more difficult, because surely concerns that express themselves in one way by one Brownson will be maintained by another, even if the initial political conclusions those concerns supported are ultimately rejected.

Let's consider two concrete examples of such persistence through change. Both are related to politics and religion. First, the early Brownson anticipates Marx, but the later Brownson repudiates socialism. Brownson's shifting religious views play a pivotal role in this transformation. Indeed, in an essay from 1855, Brownson says directly that socialists are not true Christians (351). But what persists is a respect for government. The early Brownson says, “We have no faith in those systems of elevating the working classes, which propose to elevate them without calling in the aid of government” (187). The Catholic constitutionalist speaks warmly of government, too: “Next after religion, it is man's greatest good” (432).

Second, the skeptical Brownson frets over inequality, but the religious Brownson does not. Yet again religion plays a role in this transformation. In 1840, Brownson the proto-Marxist decries “the evils of existing inequality in wealth” (175). The Catholic Brownson of 1864 takes a different position: “social equality, equality of wealth and social condition, is impracticable, and even undesirable” (413). Perhaps Christianity in general, or Roman Catholicism in particular, requires an acceptance of certain kinds of inequality the early Brownson found intolerable. Regardless, religion makes a real difference here. But, again, there's persistence through change, and what continues in this case is a concern for the poor: “The workingman is poor and depressed,” the early Brownson writes (169). The Catholic Bronson speaks movingly of the thousands of children, “orphans or worse than orphans” in New York City, “absolutely homeless, who live by begging and thieving, and lodge on doorsteps, under the wharves, and in miserable dens” (508).

Brownson's intellectual journey, offered to us in the pages of Seeking the Truth, shows how religious conversion can radically change one's assessment of political life. The skeptical Brownson decries inequality, but the religious Brownson accepts it. But Brownson's conversion does not obliterate all his commitments. His deep concern for the poor continues. Brownson's life illustrates how religious conversions need not strip people of all their political commitments; indeed, conversion may strengthen some of them. Seeking the Truth is thus not merely a guide to the thought of Orestes Brownson, though it is certainly that. It also promotes deep reflection on the relationship between religious conversion and political commitments.