The Restless Heart: Augustine and the Ideas That Still Run the World

Why do we keep choosing the things that don't satisfy us? Why do we know exactly what we should do — and then not do it? Why does every acquisition, every relationship, every achievement leave something still wanting? A man answered these questions sixteen centuries ago. Not in theory. From the inside. Augustine of Hippo was born in 354 AD in a landlocked town in what is now Algeria, the son of a pagan father and a ferociously devout mother. He became one of the finest rhetoricians of the Roman Empire, lived with a woman he loved for fifteen years without ever writing down her name, spent nine years in a Persian religious cult, and said the same prayer every morning for a decade: Lord, make me chaste. But not yet. He was, in other words, exactly like us. What Augustine did with that divided self — the war between what we know and what we do, between the life we intend and the life we actually live — changed Western civilisation. His Confessions invented the interior monologue, the examined life, and the idea that speaking the truth about yourself to a witness is itself a form of healing. Freud, Descartes, Nietzsche, Camus, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger all worked in territory he mapped first. On May 8, 2025, a man stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica and told the world exactly who he was — not with a programme or a biography, but with five words: I am a son of Augustine. Pope Leo XIV, the first Augustinian pope in history, has cited Augustine in every speech, every homily, every apostolic letter of his pontificate. On April 14, 2026, he stood in the ruins of the city where Augustine died — Annaba, Algeria, the ancient Hippo — and celebrated Mass before five hundred faithful in a majority Muslim country, in direct defiance of the most powerful government on earth. This is the book that explains why that was inevitable. THE RESTLESS HEART is narrative non-fiction in the tradition of Erik Larson and David Grann — a thriller built from real events, real ideas, and a real man whose thought still runs the world you live in. It is not a theology book. It is not a biography for specialists. It is the story of the most consequential divided self in Western history, told with the urgency it deserves. Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee. He did not mean this as comfort. He meant it as the most accurate description ever written of what it feels like to be a human being. This book will show you what he found when he went all the way to the bottom of that restlessness. And what it cost him.
ASIN: B0GXL585BL
VSKU: BVV.B0GXL585BL.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Bertoni, David Bradley
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover, if applicable . Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.