Womp Tomp's Bundle

Four Books on What Went Wrong

This bundle collects four works from four different centuries and traditions, each one diagnosing the modern world from a different angle. A Traditionalist metaphysician, an Aristotelian-Thomist philosopher, a Danish existentialist, and an Edwardian journalist all arrive at versions of the same conclusion: something fundamental has gone missing from Western civilization, and most people have not noticed.

What's Included

The Crisis of the Modern World by René Guénon (Sophia Perennis, Paperback). First published in 1927, this is the sharpest statement of the Traditionalist critique of modernity. Guénon argues that the modern West has cut itself off from every traditional civilization that preceded it — replacing metaphysics with science, quality with quantity, and cyclical time with the myth of progress. Short, dense, and written with the precision of a mathematician.

The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism by Edward Feser (St. Augustine's Press, Paperback). A book-length demolition of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris. Feser argues that the modern rejection of Aristotelian metaphysics didn't free Western thought from superstition — it destroyed the only rational basis for natural law, objective morality, and the intelligibility of nature. The philosophical arguments are rigorous. The tone is unapologetic.

The Sickness Unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard (Princeton University Press, Paperback). Published in 1849, this is Kierkegaard at his most concentrated. The sickness of the title is despair — not the emotion, but an ontological condition. Every human being is in despair whether they know it or not, because despair is the failure to properly relate the self to itself and to God. A foundational text of existentialism and one of the most searching works of Christian philosophy ever written.

What's Wrong with the World by G.K. Chesterton (CreateSpace, Paperback). Chesterton's 1910 essay collection tackles education, feminism, property, and the failures of both socialism and capitalism. His answer to "what's wrong with the world" is that moderns have forgotten what the ideal looks like. Funny, paradoxical, and written in prose that makes you want to read sentences aloud.

About This Bundle

• Authors: René Guénon, Edward Feser, Søren Kierkegaard, G.K. Chesterton
• Books: 4
• Format: Paperback