THE ACHIEVEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER DAWSON

Fr. David Knowles, Cambridge Professor of Medieval History, 
wrote these words about Christopher Dawson in an obituary at 
the time of the latter's death on May 25, 1970:

	"The death of Christopher Dawson, in his 81st year, will 
probably pass unheeded by many of those who are not forty 
years old. He had left England for America twelve years ago--and 
what twelve years those have been!--and for some years before he 
went and since his return he had been, as it were, 
incommunicado, partly through choice, but more on account of 
weak health. But to those who were young, or not so old, in the 
late 1920s and the 1930s he will always remain as a master, 
indeed as a prophet. His vast learning, his faultless scholarship, 
were at the service of a mind that did not fear to take the 
broadest view of history and religion, yet which never turned 
history into meta-history, and never imposed thought-patterns 
upon the story of the living past.

	His origins and background seemed "improbable" enough to 
those who knew him only in middle life. The slight figure and 
gentle voice gave one the fear that a gust of wind might sweep 
him out of sight, and his frail, if striking, appearance, his weak 
health, and his retiring, even shy disposition kept him away from