As we all prepare for the 4th of July, going through some of America’s past commentaries provides some curious glimpses of the preoccupations and hopes of other generations.
Books
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Beach reads, old faves and some seriously hefty tomes: The ‘America’ summer reading list
Some of our recommendations are great beach reads; some are serious history books; and one of them is an old encyclical, because Jesuits gonna Jesuit.
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Review: The Big Apple in the 1980s
The New York that Jonathan Mahler describes in ‘The Gods of New York’ is unstable, vulgar and dangerous. But there is much more to the story of the city in the late 1980s.
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Review: Going nuclear—or not
Two new books—’Return to Fukushima’ and ‘Nuclear Is Not The Solution’—lay out the perils and ugly history of nuclear power.
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Review: Maritain’s artful scholasticism
Jacques Maritain’s thought can be intimidating to anyone without a strong background in theology or philosophy. But ‘The Christian Philosophy of Jacques Maritain’ can be a helpful introduction.
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Review: A counternarrative to American religious history
Matthew Sutton’s ‘Chosen Land’ addresses American religious history as one of a luxurious pluralism—but he often crosses the line into a perhaps-overdone editorial voice that grates on the reader.
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The moral witness of doctor and writer Robert Coles
Robert Coles—a psychiatrist, sociologist, historian and storyteller—was in many ways the moral conscience of his generation.
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Andre Dubus’s ‘A Father’s Story’: a short story with theological heft
For Andre Dubus, writing was a question of deciphering what was happening in the lives of his characters and translating that for others to see and understand—all of which can be seen clearly in “A Father’s Story.”
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Review: The joy of fandom
There are any number of excellent books about sports that shine a spotlight on particular teams or seasons or even players, but Michael Schur and Joe Posnanski’s “Big Fan: Two Friends, 82,490 Miles, and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love” is the new standard for celebrating the multifaceted nature of fandom itself.
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New and familiar faces—and emerging voices—in American Catholic theology
Both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the College Theology Society held conventions in the past few weeks—a chance to evaluate the discipline of theology and honor outstanding scholars.