Books

During World War II Arthur M Schlesinger Jr held a modest position in Elmer Davis rsquo s Office of War Information One of his few thrills was ghostwriting low-level messages for President Roosevelt Schlesinger recollects My first success was a presidential endorsement of Universal Bible Sunday

Who speaks for America Today for Tony Smith the answer clearly is American ethnic groups because they play a larger role in the shaping of the foreign policy of the United States than most recognize That impact he fears is largely negative and in his new book Foreign Attachments The Power o

People tend to look back and read history including their personal stories as inevitable Historians particularly those willing to ask What if can occasionally help us see the way that certain events might have been otherwise how much they depended on a gossamer tissue of contingencies not on

Aristotle was such a dope He misled generations of critics into thinking that art imitates nature Anyone who goes to the movies knows that art imitates other art Tom Hanks doesn rsquo t imitate anyone in the real world he imitates Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda Murders Indian wars and invasions

This is not the first book on the liturgy from Joseph Ratzinger a German Catholic theologian cardinal prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and former archbishop of Munich He has also written A New Song for the Lord as well as an important introduction to Klaus Gamber

This is a crucially important book I wanted almost immediately to send a copy to my congresswoman and to my nieces who like so many American women aged 35 to 42 are caught in the double-bind of caregiving for young children and aging parents Heymann rsquo s careful data would confirm what the

I do not know William O rsquo Malley S J but I wish I did I say this because I want both to establish and qualify the objectivity I bring to this review O rsquo Malley who teaches religious studies at Fordham Prep in the Bronx N Y says that God The Oldest Question offers a fresh look at beli

For those interested in the role that the visual arts have played in the Christian faith these two books are major contributions They are both connected to an important exhibition organized last year by the National Gallery in London entitled Seeing Salvation According to Neil MacGregor the Nati

War is wrong Mahatma Gandhi wrote It has got to go Peace will never come until the great powers courageously decide to disarm themselves Unless the world adopts nonviolence it will spell certain suicide for humanity Gandhi insisted that though history records an endless array of wars with count