The selections not only include St. Thomas Aquinas#xE2;#x80;#x99;s views ongovernment, law, war, property, and sexual ethics, but also provide thetheological, epistemological, and psychological background for hispolitical and ethical thought, including the Five Proofs on theexistence of God and Aquinas#xE2;#x80;#x99;s theories of knowledge, the soul, thepurpose of man, and the order of the universe. Throughout the book,footnotes explain technical terms and historical, biblical, andclassical references. "Backgrounds and Sources" follows the text, with selections from thewritings of Aristotle, St. Augustine, and Dionysius the Areopagite. "Interpretations" traces Aquinas#xE2;#x80;#x99;s influence on medieval thought, onRoman Catholicism during the Renaissance, on early modern politicalthought (Richard Hooker and Francisco Suarez), on nineteenth-andtwentieth-century papal social thought, and on contemporary ChristianDemocratic political parties in Europe and Latin America. The volume concludes with "Contemporary Problems in Thomistic Ethics",which contains eight analyses of the influence of Aquinas's thought onmodern debates on war, contraception, and abortion. A Selected Bibliography is included.