Books

First of all the answers to two questions burning at the back of many of our minds concerning the highly charged issue of faith-based initiatives Yes absolutely faith-based organizations do a better job rendering social services than public or government-funded agencies and no absolutely they

Reading American Jesus I longed to teach again a course I regularly used to offer on American culture and religion This would definitely be a required text It is a spritely sometimes ironic truly illuminating overview of Jesus as a national icon within and outside the organized churches Steph

Russell Shorto fires a powerful salvo in the war of words over America rsquo s origins Forcefully contesting the ingrained notion that English settlements set the mold for American values he mounts a convincing case for an alternative scenario in which the Dutch-sponsored colony of New Netherland

Until recently South Africa rsquo s fiction has been totally dominated by apartheid But in 1992 the government of F W de Klerk won a mandate for political reforms that led to an official end to apartheid and the creation of a power-sharing multiracial government and since that time many have wo

Yes When I read I write lots of notes in the margins What I wrote most often in the margins of this book by James Bretzke is simply yes yes what a fine way of putting things yes what a wonderful example yes I think I rsquo ll use that idea in my own course on Christian morality next time ar

The Sahara has never been a very hospitable place least of all for interlopers from Western countries Sailors who found themselves shipwrecked on the treacherous North African coast were subjected not only to brutal treatment by the warrior tribes of the Sahara but also to the harsh elements of th

The inordinate power of the United States under George W Bush according to Jim Garrison president of State of the World which is based in San Francisco disturbs people on the American left but excites people on the American right Conservatives view the fall of the Soviet empire as Ronald Reaga

Not long ago an English critic and essayist Geoffrey Wheatcroft cast a cold eye on the rash of memoirs written by Irish Catholics from both sides of the Atlantic Would there ever come a day Wheatcroft wondered when an Irish-Catholic memoirist would have something good to say about his or her f

This book as its subtitle indicates is a history of the Jesuits from their origins up to the present day It is well researched broadly learned sophisticated fast-paced sympathetic yet critical somewhat impressionistic in approach and sometimes breezy in style I recommend it Jonathan Wright