Books

You have to warm to a man who spent the night reading The Old Man and the Sea after he received word that he was to be made a bishop The account of the future John Paul II reading Hemingway on a train as he returned after being informed that he was to be made a bishop to a group of young people wi

Archaeological digs in the land of Israel often shed light on the Jewish and Christian Bibles and on the persons and events that occupy their pages Sometimes the discoveries make us rethink long-held ideas One need recall only the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls for example which is helping us

One finds in theological circles frequent appeal to the ldquo sacramental imagination rdquo as a distinguishing trait of Catholicism Like all truths when unimaginatively intoned it quickly becomes platitudinous The Rev M Owen Lee rsquo s finely crafted and deeply moving memoir never invokes t

The ultra right may have the loudest talking heads these days Limbaugh O rsquo Reilly Hannity etc but the left has cornered the market on stylish witty substantial writers Lewis Lapham Frank Rich Maureen Dowd Hendrik Hertzberg and others None of the leftist gang are likely to become

On his honeymoon Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife Sophia read to each other the entirety of Milton rsquo s Paradise Lost an apt symbol for Hawthorne rsquo s persistent preoccupation with issues of sin guilt and redemption To mark the 200th anniversary last summer of Hawthorne rsquo s birth th

Samuel Huntington the Harvard professor who gave us The Clash of Civilizations and The Remaking of World Order has weighed in on the current discussions of religion politics race and ethnicity with his extended meditation or rather screed on American national identity It is a maddening book

Patrick Allitt is professor of U S history at Emory University He has been teaching undergraduates for more than 20 years and holds an endowed chair designated for ldquo Teaching Excellence rdquo When you read his newest book you will understand why As the book rsquo s subtitle indicates the r

Roger Haight past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America is one of the most prolific and methodologically astute practitioners of theology today The present volume the first of two devoted to the project of ldquo historical ecclesiology rdquo builds upon the approach to theo