Books Archives

Transformation in Christ

In one of his most well-known and beloved books, Dietrich von Hildebrand walks us through the Beatitudes and the spiritual life with an unrivaled clarity and depth. Transformation in Christ is a practical work on Christian perfection, utilizing Hildebrand’s unique philosophical and religious insights.

A major contribution to the only important question: the transformation of our soul in Christ.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen

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Transformation in Christ Podcast Series

We published 35 episodes of our podcast, Lily: The Voice of Alice von Hildebrand discussing Transformation in Christ. With her characteristic wit and charm, Alice walks us through her husband’s most beloved work. She provides us with unique insights from the book that had the most profound impact on her life from the moment she first heard Dietrich speak about it in 1942.

Commentary on the Text

Hildebrand Project Associated Scholars Maria Wolter, Mark K. Spencer, and James Beauregard examine the important first chapter of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Transformation in Christ, “The Readiness to Change.”

This panel was recorded at the 2022 Summer Seminar, “The Readiness to Change.”

Reviews of the Book

From scholars, students, and readers

A masterpiece of modern spirituality: eminently practical and highly recommended.

John Hardon, SJ

Blurb from the book

Transformation in Christ‘s unique merit consists in exploring the various levels of the dogmatic good news as revealed in the experiential good life.

Leo J. O’Donovan, SJ

America Magazine

Dietrich von Hildebrand is so well formed in the tradition and yet he is also a highly expressive and original thinker who is able to give voice to many movements of the soul for which most would be at a loss for words. If you are looking for language to understand and explain your spiritual life in a mature and articulate way, this book will give you good guidance.

Amanda Achtman

Amazon

The Heart

The Heart contains one of Hildebrand’s most important contributions to the perennial tradition. Hildebrand believes that “the affective sphere, and the heart at its center, have been more or less under a cloud throughout the entire course of the history of philosophy.” In this important work, Hildebrand reveals the importance of affectivity in understanding the world objectively, and shows how the heart is the most important center of human activity.

In order to understand the nature of the heart, we must realize that in many respects it is more the real self of the person than his intellect or will.
Dietrich von Hildebrand

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Hildebrand on the Heart

Hildebrand Project Associated Scholars Maria Wolter and Mark K. Spencer examine the philosophy of Dietrich von Hildebrand and Max Scheler on affectivity and human life.

This panel was recorded at the 2020 Summer Seminar, “The Heart.”

Reviews & Commentary

From scholars, students, and readers

The book remains a timely contribution to philosophy and Christian spirituality and, as the first fruit of the Hildebrand Project, can only be applauded.

Michael Dodds, OP

The Review of Metaphysics

Many spiritual directors are of the opinion that much of the present unrest within the Church is due to an affective deficiency created by an over-emphasis on the role of intellect and will. This book can certainly help counselors rectify the alleged imbalance among human faculties by restoring the heart to its proper place—at the center of human life.

Dominic Maruca, SJ

Theological Studies

Hildebrand’s analysis has brought front and center a notion central to the Biblical tradition but that has remained on the periphery for most of the history of Western philosophy. It played a significant role in Hegel’s thought that furnished its systematic location in human life: it is the center of individual subjectivity. Without it even the highest development of Reason remains inauthentic. Heart without intellect or intellect without heart: each is equally one-sided. One might even say that intellectual and volitional development are for the sake of the deepening and purification of the heart. Von Hildebrand’s book makes that argument.

Robert E. Wood

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

My Battle Against Hitler

How does a person become Hitler’s enemy number one? Not through espionage or violence, it turns out, but by striking fearlessly at the intellectual and spiritual roots of National Socialism. Dietrich von Hildebrand devoted the full force of his intellect to breaking the deadly spell of Nazism that ensnared so many of his beloved countrymen.

Through his love of truth and his brave opposition to a public culture of deception, he bore witness to values that we still share. Philosophy, for von Hildebrand, was a way of life and a commitment to freedom, in the face of ideologies that promise utopia while causing only destruction and death.
Sir Roger Scruton | From the Foreword to the book

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My Battle Against Hitler Book Launch

Hildebrand Project President and Founder John Henry Crosby is joined by Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, Eric Metaxas, Michael Novak, and Rabbi Meir Soloveichick to discuss the powerful witness of Dietrich von Hildebrand against the Nazi ideology.

Word on Fire Podcast

Tod Worner and John Henry Crosby discuss the importance of Hildebrand’s opposition to the Nazis on Word on Fire’s Evangelization and Culture podcast.

Reviews & Commentary

From scholars, students, and readers

Hildebrand gives us a model of phenomenological philosophy of history in actu exercitu, through a philosophical interpretation of a particular historical situation in which he was personally involved: the struggle with Hitler that was, at the same time, a battle for the dignity of man and a battle for the truth of the German Spirit.

Rocco Buttiglione

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

As the memoir unfolds, even von Hildebrand’s wistful monarchism evaporates under the force of his philosophical personalism and extraordinary faith. Here is a philosopher pushed into anti-Nazism precisely by the power of his new philosophical view. If Camus is counted as the father of political engagement, then he should be seen as the stepchild of von Hildebrand, who pioneered the place of the philosopher as a public and political nemesis to Nazism.

Charles R. Gallagher, SJ

America Magazine

We need witnesses like Hildebrand to keep us on track amid the many conflicting ideas that fill our world today.

Luke Arredondo

Ignitum Today

There is but one man who can stand with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, both in intellectual brilliance and in bravery toward the Nazis; that man is Dietrich von Hildebrand. I am privileged to strongly recommend this important book as a superb introduction to this great hero of the faith.

Eric Metaxas

This memoir reveals the strength of character that von Hildebrand bravely displaced throughout his twenty-year battle against of the greatest evils of his age. Even amid significant personal danger, he never wavered in his commitment to the truth. We remember Dietrich von Hildebrand’s intellectual contributions, but let us also recall his witness to human dignity in the face of evil.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan

It is an account filled with courage and determination as von Hildebrand fights the grave evils of the Nazis until the final days when he must flee Austria to avoid assassination.

Terrence Nollen

Southern Nebraska Register

Dietrich von Hildebrand was brave in his public writings against the Nazis, brave in his hair-raising escape from Vienna in 1938. He was also bold and uncompromising in his convictions about responsibility, love, and liberty. This book brings the bold von Hildebrand back into our midst.

Michael Novak

These writings are an essential witness to the power of a good conscience. Knowing he spoke the truth, Hildebrand possessed the rare freedom of those who know their cause will stand under the lens of the eternal.

Erna Albertz

Plough

One cannot help but be struck by the deep thoughtfulness that permeated in the dramatic life of von Hildebrand and his criticism of Nazism. Because of his love of truth, a love that came from his hopeful faith and faithful reason, he was able to suffer any consequences that was born from that love.

Apolonio Latar

Communion & Liberation

Remnant of Paradise

Alice von Hildebrand’s in-person brilliance lends itself most favorably to the essay, the written form that comes closest to the naturalness and immediacy of speech. Her essays spilled out of her much like the ideas would flow out of her when she was enlivened by a conversation. To read them is to be in the presence of the woman whom Pope Benedict XVI called “a noble lady.”

Few missions are as noble as the one of seeking truth and of spreading it when it is found. Few tasks are as important as the one of enlightening an ignorant and gullible public, and of helping it to gain objective information.
Alice von Hildebrand

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Lily: The Voice of Alice von Hildebrand

Alice von Hildebrand — “Lily” to her friends — was an exceptional conversationalist and teacher. She possessed an unrivaled clarity and a charming wit that knew no bounds. Our archival podcast showcases Lily at her very best, discussing many of the topics found in Remnant of Paradise.

Reviews of the Book

From scholars, students, and readers

She writes about truth and charity, how the first exists and how the two are bound together. She explains the true meaning behind sacramentals, that it is a betrayal of truth and love to be unwilling to care about a loved one’s moral state, or that an ancient sacred liturgy should not be forbidden. She gives a voice to the ideas that swirl around my mind and reminds me what we believe and why we believe it. Reading her words, I feel seen, known, and loved. And as always, Alice von Hildebrand does this in an effortless, approachable, conversational style.

Kathryn Anne Casey

Kathryn Anne Casey

When arguments for God’s existence fall on deaf ears or objectivity has been undermined, it can still be meaningful to share a powerful story, especially one that involves special person. The desire for truth may wane, but the power of truth communicated in love remains. As this work shows, such stories invite us into something beyond ourselves, a union with a Love that knows no bounds, or what Alice might call “a remnant of paradise.”

Adam Brown

Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care

“Remnant of Paradise” illuminates the life of a woman who magnificently united word and wisdom within her. Alice von Hildebrand did not merely comment on the pernicious ideologies of the secular landscape via her pen but also confronted it head-on as a professor. Her professional and personal life each fully aligned, with the indwelling of God in her soul as the true key to her peace and presence. She was a woman with faults and fears like us, but who strove for transformation in Christ and to lead a recollected life in the light of eternity.

Leila Joy Castillo

Caeli Magazine

Memoirs of a Happy Failure

Discover the life of Alice von Hildebrand, as she movingly recounts her childhood years in Belgium, her life as a refugee in the United States, and her career as a professor for 37 years at Hunter College in New York. Read how she faced constant, systemic opposition in her career, not only because of her gender but because of her Catholic faith — and how, through it all, she maintained an attitude of reverence, hope, and gratitude.

I never compromised what I knew to be true for the sake of worldly advantages. So, even though I am a failure, I am a most successful and happy one.
Alice von Hildebrand

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Lily: The Voice of Alice von Hildebrand

Alice von Hildebrand — “Lily” to her friends — was an exceptional conversationalist and teacher. She possessed an unrivaled clarity and a charming wit that knew no bounds. Our archival podcast showcases Lily at her very best. In this episode, she walks us through an abridged version of Memoirs of a Happy Failure.

Reviews of the Book

Alice von Hildebrand’s memoir of her years at Hunter College is a glistening, brilliant, priceless gem. She is so witty, wise, and indefatigable in her stand for Truth that simply to be in her presence, whether in the classroom or in the vital pages of this book, is to be profoundly inspired.

Eric Metaxas

Memoirs of a Happy Failure fills us with gratitude for the gift of Dr. Alice von Hildebrand life in Christ, lived with so much integrity and vigor over many years, as she has tirelessly given witness to the truth by both her example and her teaching.

Raymond Cardinal Burke

Dr. von Hildebrand’s fascinating life brings into sharp relief the way in which all people—whether their title is Cardinal, Professor, Mom, Dad, or Friend—are called to bring the light of Christ into the world around them. The stories recounted here of the transformative impact that God’s love had on so many of Dr. von Hildebrand’s students remind us that we are all instruments of God’s plan.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan

The Nature of Love

The Nature of Love is a masterpiece of phenomenological investigation. Here, Hildebrand uncovers and develops not only new insights on love as such but deeply explores subjectivity and what it means to be a person. He pushes back against the idea that happiness is the primary motivation of the lover, and that love is radically centered on the other: not the lover, but the beloved.

Reading the book might help you grow more into the loving person you are meant to be.
Fritz Wenisch

An Ontology of Love

A Patristic Reading of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s The Nature of Love.

Watch on YouTube

His Eminence John Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon, presents a paper on Hildebrand’s text at the conference “The Christian Personalism of Dietrich von Hildebrand: Exploring his Philosophy of Love” Rome in 2010.

Reviews & Commentary

From scholars, students, and readers

It is hardly worth mentioning that a 1,800-word review cannot do justice to von Hildebrand’s great work. Reading the book might help you grow more into the loving person you are meant to be.

Fritz Wenisch

in Faith and Philosophy

The Nature of Love is a highly valuable contribution to the ongoing tradition, the fruit of a lifetime of finely honed phenomenological reflection. What von Hildebrand has accomplished here is an example of the best sort of phenomenology—with acute observation and precise analysis he opens the eyes of anyone willing to see the reality of value in creation, and ultimately the source of value in its Creator.

Rachel and Mathew Lu

in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

In his conclusion, Hildebrand humbly states: “And so we hope that, in spite of all its deficiencies, this book illuminates the nature of love more deeply. Indeed, we even hope that in these investigations something is revealed of the inexhaustible depth and the incomparable glory of this most central of all personal acts.” In the opinion of this reviewer, he has surely accomplished this goal and even more. We wait eagerly for the next translation by the Crosby team of father and son in the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project

Sr. Prudence Allen

in The Review of Metaphysics

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