davidewright_philosophy's review against another edition
3.0
There wasn't a whole lot here that was new, and I wouldn't really recommend this book to those who are just beginning to read Day (that said, I gobbled it up in less than two days). However, the book does have a purpose: she writes the book as a response to her comrades on the left who are dubious about why someone who cared deeply for the poor and oppressed would choose to ally herself with the Catholic Church. In typical Day fashion, she answers this through both narrative (her story giving her leftist bona fides and how she turned to the Church in a time of joy rather than despair) and direct response (the final chapter confronts three standard objections from Communists toward Christianity). Day is more of a journalist/orator than a debater/philosopher proper, so one shouldn't expect an involved dialectic with secular leftist ideology, though she shows a decent familiarity with the socialist, communist, and anarchist critiques of organized religion of her day. I think that if someone from the political left was just beginning to study Day, he or she would be better off starting with 'Loaves and Fishes' (which gives the origin of the Catholic Worker movement) since this gives a broader view of the positive aims of what she was doing and the intellectual justifications behind the movement, but Union Square to Rome might be an appropriate place to turn shortly thereafter since one is likely to be curious about her background and reasons for making the kind of life commitment that she ultimately did.
amybirdy's review
Read for Action and Evil Study Group at St. George's Round Church.
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