Christian's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 06 Apr 2025 14:33:18 -0700 60 Christian's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church]]> 201335312
In What it Means to Be Protestant, Gavin Ortlund draws from both his scholarly work in church history and his personal experience in ecumenical engagement to offer a powerful defense of the Protestant tradition. Retrieving classical Protestant texts and arguments, he exposes how many of the contemporary objections leveled against Protestants are rooted in caricature. Ultimately, he shows that historic Protestantism offers the best pathway to catholicity and historical rootedness for Christians today.??

In his characteristically charitable and irenic style, Ortlund demonstrates that the 16th century Reformation represented a genuine renewal of the gospel. This does not entail that Protestantism is without faults. But because it is built upon the principle of semper reformanda (always reforming), Protestantism is capable of reforming itself according to Scripture as the ultimate authority. This scholarly and yet accessible book breaks new ground in ecumenical theology and will be a staple text in the field for many years to come.]]> 288 Gavin Ortlund 0310156327 Christian 4 theology-etc 4.58 What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church
author: Gavin Ortlund
name: Christian
average rating: 4.58
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: theology-etc
review:

]]> Revival and Revivalism 663473 455 Iain H. Murray 0851516602 Christian 4 history, theology-etc 4.44 1994 Revival and Revivalism
author: Iain H. Murray
name: Christian
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: history, theology-etc
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Narrow Road Between Desires (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #0.6)]]> 157265081
From dawn to midnight over the course of a single day, follow the Kingkiller Chronicle's most charming fae as he schemes and sneaks, dancing into trouble and back out again with uncanny grace.

The Narrow Road Between Desires is Bast's story. In it he traces the old ways of making and breaking, following his heart even when doing so goes against his better judgement.

After all, what good is caution if it keeps him from danger and delight?]]> 240 Patrick Rothfuss 0756419182 Christian 3 fiction, speculative-fiction 4.01 2023 The Narrow Road Between Desires (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #0.6)
author: Patrick Rothfuss
name: Christian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: fiction, speculative-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Scripture's Knowing: A Companion to Biblical Epistemology (Cascade Companions)]]> 27562147 Scripture's Knowing is a guide to the emerging field of philosophical study of Scripture, specifically about knowing. Assuming that the Scriptures speak verbosely and persistently about knowing, what do the biblical authors have to say? How do they conceptualize ideas like truth and knowledge? Most importantly, how do we come to confidently know anything at all? Scripture's Knowing follows the discourse on knowledge through key biblical texts and shows the similarity of biblical knowing with the scientific enterprise. The findings are linked to the role of ritual in knowing and implications for theologians and churches today.

Dru Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at The King's College in New York City, cochair of the Hebrew Bible and Philosophy program unit in the Society of Biblical Literature, and a former Templeton Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies--Shalem Center (now The Herzl Institute) in Jerusalem.]]> 128 Dru Johnson 1498204708 Christian 5 theology-etc 4.44 Scripture's Knowing: A Companion to Biblical Epistemology (Cascade Companions)
author: Dru Johnson
name: Christian
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2016/11/17
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: theology-etc
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol 9: A Journey to the Western Island of Scotland (The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson)]]> 693237 185 Samuel Johnson 0300012519 Christian 4 autobio-memoir 3.53 1775 The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol 9: A Journey to the Western Island of Scotland (The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson)
author: Samuel Johnson
name: Christian
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1775
rating: 4
read at: 2015/11/01
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: autobio-memoir
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The History of the Kings of Britain]]> 129521 The History of the Kings of Britain traces the story of the realm from its supposed foundation by Brutus to the coming of the Saxons some two thousand years later. Vividly portraying legendary and semi-legendary figures such as Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin the magician and the most famous of all British heroes, King Arthur, it is as much myth as it is history and its veracity was questioned by other medieval writers. But Geoffrey of Monmouth's powerful evocation of illustrious men and deeds captured the imagination of subsequent generations, and his influence can be traced through the works of Malory, Shakespeare, Dryden and Tennyson.]]> 373 Geoffrey of Monmouth 0140441700 Christian 4 3.72 1136 The History of the Kings of Britain
author: Geoffrey of Monmouth
name: Christian
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1136
rating: 4
read at: 2015/05/20
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: history, premodern-world, premodern-primary-sources, in-translation
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 17125 The only English translation authorized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy"--Harrison Salisbury

This unexpurgated 1991 translation by H. T. Willetts is the only authorized edition available, and fully captures the power and beauty of the original Russian.]]> 182 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Christian 4 fiction, in-translation 3.98 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Christian
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: fiction, in-translation
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Disappearance of Childhood]]> 79679
Deftly marshaling a vast array of historical and demographic research, Neil Postman, author of Technopoly, suggests that childhood is a relatively recent invention, which came into being as the new medium of print imposed divisions between children and adults. But now these divisions are eroding under the barrage of television, which turns the adult secrets of sex and violence into popular entertainment and pitches both news and advertising at the intellectual level of ten-year-olds.]]> 177 Neil Postman 0679751661 Christian 0 to-read 3.99 1982 The Disappearance of Childhood
author: Neil Postman
name: Christian
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School]]> 96441 The End of Education restores meaning and common sense to the arena in which they are most urgently needed.

"Informal and clear...Postman's ideas about education are appealingly fresh."--New York Times Book Review]]> 209 Neil Postman 0679750312 Christian 0 to-read 3.96 1995 The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School
author: Neil Postman
name: Christian
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology]]> 79678
"A provocative book ... A tool for fighting back against the tools that run our lives."� Dallas Morning News

The story of our society's transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it—with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.]]> 222 Neil Postman 0679745408 Christian 4 3.95 1992 Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
author: Neil Postman
name: Christian
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Vietnam War: A Concise International History (Very Short Introductions)]]> 2701228
While focusing on American involvement between 1965 and 1975, Lawrence offers an unprecedentedly complete picture of all sides of the war, notably by examining the motives that drove the Vietnamese communists and their foreign allies. Moreover, the book carefully considers both the long- and short-term origins of the war. Lawrence examines the rise of Vietnamese communism in the early twentieth century and reveals how Cold War anxieties of the 1940s and 1950s set the United States on the road to intervention. Of course, the heart of the book covers the "American war," ranging from the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem to the impact of the Tet Offensive on American public opinion, Lyndon Johnson's withdrawal from the 1968 presidential race, Richard Nixon's expansion of the war into Cambodia and Laos, and the problematic peace agreement of 1973, which ended American military involvement. Finally, the book explores the complex aftermath of the war--its enduring legacy
in American books, film, and political debate, as well as Vietnam's struggles with severe social and economic problems.

A compact and authoritative primer on an intensely relevant topic, this well-researched and engaging volume offers an invaluable overview of the Vietnam War.]]> 224 Mark Atwood Lawrence 0195314654 Christian 4 history 3.87 2008 The Vietnam War: A Concise International History (Very Short Introductions)
author: Mark Atwood Lawrence
name: Christian
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: history
review:

]]> Phantastes 174948
In MacDonald's fairy tales, both those for children and (like this one) those for adults, the "fairy land" clearly represents the spiritual world, or our own world revealed in all of its depth and meaning. At times almost forthrightly allegorical, at other times richly dreamlike (and indeed having a close connection to the symbolic world of dreams), this story of a young man who finds himself on a long journey through a land of fantasy is more truly the story of the spiritual quest that is at the core of his life's work, a quest that must end with the ultimate surrender of the self.

The glory of MacDonald's work is that this surrender is both hard won (or lost!) and yet rippling with joy when at last experienced. As the narrator says of a heavenly woman in this tale, "She knew something too good to be told." One senses the same of the author himself.

Newly designed and typeset in a modern 6-by-9-inch format by Waking Lion Press.]]> 212 George MacDonald 160096401X Christian 4 fiction, speculative-fiction 3.91 1858 Phantastes
author: George MacDonald
name: Christian
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1858
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: fiction, speculative-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Hath Darwin to Do with Scripture?: Comparing Conceptual Worlds of the Bible and Evolution]]> 156427981 224 Dru Johnson 1514003619 Christian 4 theology-etc 4.20 What Hath Darwin to Do with Scripture?: Comparing Conceptual Worlds of the Bible and Evolution
author: Dru Johnson
name: Christian
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: theology-etc
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights]]> 53283966
In The Movement, Thomas C. Holt provides an informed and nuanced understanding of the origins, character, and objectives of the mid-twentieth-century freedom struggle, privileging the aspirations and initiatives of the ordinary, grassroots people who made it. Holt conveys a sense of these developments as a social movement, one that shaped its participants even as they shaped it. He emphasizes the conditions of possibility that enabled the heroic initiatives of the common folk over those of their more celebrated leaders. This groundbreaking book reinserts the critical concept of "movement" back into our image and understanding of the civil rights movement.
]]> 176 Thomas C. Holt 0197525792 Christian 3 history 3.81 2021 The Movement: The African American Struggle for Civil Rights
author: Thomas C. Holt
name: Christian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: history
review:

]]> The Cold War: A World History 33775602 From a Bancroft Prize-winning scholar, a new global history of the Cold War and its ongoing impact around the world

We tend to think of the Cold War as a bounded conflict: a clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, born out of the ashes of World War II and coming to a dramatic end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Bancroft Prize-winning scholar Odd Arne Westad argues that the Cold War must be understood as a global ideological confrontation, with early roots in the Industrial Revolution and ongoing repercussions around the world.

In The Cold War, Westad offers a new perspective on a century when great power rivalry and ideological battle transformed every corner of our globe. From Soweto to Hollywood, Hanoi, and Hamburg, young men and women felt they were fighting for the future of the world. The Cold War may have begun on the perimeters of Europe, but it had its deepest reverberations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where nearly every community had to choose sides. And these choices continue to define economies and regimes across the world.

Today, many regions are plagued with environmental threats, social divides, and ethnic conflicts that stem from this era. Its ideologies influence China, Russia, and the United States; Iraq and Afghanistan have been destroyed by the faith in purely military solutions that emerged from the Cold War.

Stunning in its breadth and revelatory in its perspective, this book expands our understanding of the Cold War both geographically and chronologically, and offers an engaging new history of how today’s world was created.]]> 710 Odd Arne Westad 0465054935 Christian 4 history 4.28 2017 The Cold War: A World History
author: Odd Arne Westad
name: Christian
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Democratization of American Christianity]]> 877088


"Rarely do works of scholarship deserve as much attention as this one. The so-called Second Great Awakening was the shaping epoch of American Protestantism, and this book is the most important study of it ever published."—James Turner, Journal of Interdisciplinary History



"The most powerful, informed, and complex suggestion yet made about the religious, political, and psychic 'opening' of American life from Jefferson to Jackson. . . . Hatch's reconstruction of his five religious mass movements will add popular religious culture to denominationalism, church and state, and theology as primary dimensions of American religious history."—Robert M. Calhoon, William and Mary Quarterly



"Hatch's revisionist work asks us to put the religion of the early republic in a radically new perspective. . . . He has written one of the finest books on American religious history to appear in many years."—James H. Moorhead, Theology Today



The manuscript version of this book was awarded the 1988 Albert C. Outler Prize in Ecumenical Church History from the American Society ofChurch History



Awarded the 1989 book prize of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic for the best book in the history of the early republic (1789-1850)



Co-winner of the 1990 John HopeFranklin Publication Prize given by the American Studies Association for the best book in American Studies



Nathan O. Hatch is professor of history and vice president for Graduate Studies and Research at the University of NotreDame.

]]> 312 Nathan O. Hatch 0300050607 Christian 0 to-read 4.07 1991 The Democratization of American Christianity
author: Nathan O. Hatch
name: Christian
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture]]> 100167
Smith suggests that human beings have a peculiar set of capacities and proclivities that distinguishes them significantly from other animals on this planet. Despite the vast differences in humanity between cultures and across history, no matter how differently people narrate their lives and histories, there remains an underlying structure of human personhood that helps to order human culture, history, and narration. Drawing on important recent insights in moral philosophy, epistemology, and narrative studies, Smith argues that humans are animals who have an inescapable moral and spiritual dimension. They cannot avoid a fundamental moral orientation in life and this, says Smith, has profound consequences for how sociology must study human beings.]]> 176 Christian Smith 0195162021 Christian 4 3.84 2003 Moral, Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture
author: Christian Smith
name: Christian
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Save the World on Your Own Time]]> 2249998
In Save the World On Your Own Time, Stanley Fish argues that, however laudable these goals might be, there is but one proper role for the academe in society: to advance bodies of knowledge and to equip students for doing the same. When teachers offer themselves as moralists, political activists, or agents of social change rather than as credentialed experts in a particular subject and the methods used to analyze it, they abdicate their true purpose. And yet professors now routinely bring their political views into the classroom and seek to influence the political views of their students. Those who do this will often invoke academic freedom, but Fish argues that academic freedom, correctly understood, is the freedom to do the academic job, not the freedom to do any job that comes into the professor's mind. He insists that a professor's only obligation is "to present the material in the syllabus and introduce students to state-of-the-art methods of analysis. Not to practice politics, but to study it; not to proselytize for or against religious doctrines, but to describe them; not to affirm or condemn Intelligent Design, but to explain what it is and analyze its appeal."

Given that hot-button issues such as Holocaust denial, free speech, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are regularly debated in classrooms across the nation, Save the World On Your Own Time is certain to spark fresh debate—and to incense both liberals and conservatives—about the true purpose of higher education in America.]]> 208 Stanley Fish 0195369025 Christian 0 to-read 3.38 2008 Save the World on Your Own Time
author: Stanley Fish
name: Christian
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition]]> 76732 Consilience to unify all branches of knowledge is nothing more than a fatuous subordination of religion, art, and everything else that is good to science…Berry is one of the most perceptive critics of American society writing today." --Lauren F. Winner, Washington Post Book World

"I am tempted to say he understands [Consilience] better than Wilson himself…A new emancipation proclamation in which he speaks again and again about how to defy the tyranny of scientific materialism" ---Colin C. Campbell, Christian Science Monitor

"Berry takes a wrecking ball to E. O. Wilson's Consilience, reducing its smug assumptions regarding the fusion of science, art, and religion to so much rubble. --Kirkus Reviews

In Life Is a Miracle, the devotion of science to the quantitative and reductionist world is measured against the mysterious, qualitative suggestions of religion and art. Berry sees life as the collision of these separate forces, but without all three in the mix we are left at sea in the world.]]> 176 Wendell Berry 1582431418 Christian 0 to-read 4.21 2000 Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition
author: Wendell Berry
name: Christian
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Search For Modern China 15764704
This text, the classic introduction to modern China for students and general readers, emerged from Spence’s highly successful introductory course at Yale, in which he traced the beginnings of modern China to internal developments beginning in the early 17th century. Strong on social and political history, as well as Chinese culture and its intersections with politics, this paperback is a longstanding leader in the survey course on modern China.]]> 730 Jonathan D. Spence 0393934519 Christian 0 currently-reading 4.19 1990 The Search For Modern China
author: Jonathan D. Spence
name: Christian
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond]]> 178836164
Alisa and Tim help the reader to deconstruct the deconstructionists and thus to respond to them, both with arguments and with love and sensitivity. This is a timely book! -- Carl Trueman, author of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self

A movement called ‘deconstruction� is sweeping through our churches and it is affecting our loved ones. It has disrupted, dismantled, and destroyed the faith of so many, and this book can help you not only understand what’s happening but also stand your ground and respond with clarity and confidence. Some who leave the faith feel wounded by the church. Others feel repressed by some of the moral imperatives found in Scripture. For some, it leads to a custom-made spirituality. For others, deconstructing their faith leads them away from the truth into agnosticism, atheism, the occult, or humanism.

In this seminal book, Alisa Childers, author of Another Gospel?, and Tim Barnett, creator of Red Pen Logic, will help you understand what deconstruction is, where it comes from, why it is compelling to some, and how it disorients the lives of so many. You will be able to think through the main issues around faith deconstruction and explore wise and loving ways to respond from a biblical worldview.]]> 304 Alisa Childers Christian 2 theology-etc 4.35 2024 The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond
author: Alisa Childers
name: Christian
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: theology-etc
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Global Age: Europe 1950-2017]]> 41136881 The final chapter in the Penguin History of Europe series from the acclaimed scholar and author of To Hell and Back

After the overwhelming horrors of the first half of the twentieth century, described by Ian Kershaw in his previous book as being 'to Hell and back,' the years from 1950 to 2017 brought peace and relative prosperity to most of Europe. Enormous economic improvements transformed the continent. The catastrophic era of the world wars receded into an ever more distant past, though its long shadow continued to shape mentalities.

Yet Europe was now a divided continent, living under the nuclear threat in a period intermittently fraught with anxiety. There were, by most definitions, striking successes: the Soviet bloc melted away, dictatorships vanished, and Germany was successfully reunited. But accelerating globalization brought new fragilities. The interlocking crises after 2008 were the clearest warnings to Europeans that there was no guarantee of peace and stability, and, even today, the continent threatens further fracturing.

In this remarkable book, Ian Kershaw has created a grand panorama of the world we live in and where it came from. Drawing on examples from all across Europe, The Global Age is an endlessly fascinating portrait of the recent past and present, and a cautious look into our future.]]> 656 Ian Kershaw 073522398X Christian 3 history 4.03 2018 The Global Age: Europe 1950-2017
author: Ian Kershaw
name: Christian
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: history
review:

]]> A Little History of the World 61505 Eine kurze Weltgeschichte für junge Leser was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in seventeen languages across the world. Toward the end of his long life, Gombrich embarked upon a revision and, at last, an English translation. A Little History of the World presents his lively and involving history to English-language readers for the first time. Superbly designed and freshly illustrated, this is a book to be savored and collected. In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. In between emerges a colorful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science. This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind's experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity's achievements and an acute witness to its frailties. The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this timeless account makes intelligible the full span of human history.]]> 284 E.H. Gombrich 0300108834 Christian 2 history, in-translation 4.11 1936 A Little History of the World
author: E.H. Gombrich
name: Christian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1936
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: history, in-translation
review:

]]> The Seven Laws of Teaching 204914 128 John Milton Gregory 0801064961 Christian 3 education 4.24 1886 The Seven Laws of Teaching
author: John Milton Gregory
name: Christian
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1886
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: education
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage]]> 52642130
Long after the transatlantic slave trade was officially outlawed in the early nineteenth century by every major slave trading nation, merchants based in the United States were still sending hundreds of illegal slave ships from American ports to the African coast. The key instigators were slave traders who moved to New York City after the shuttering of the massive illegal slave trade to Brazil in 1850. These traffickers were determined to make lower Manhattan a key hub in the illegal slave trade to Cuba. In conjunction with allies in Africa and Cuba, they ensnared around 200,000 African men, women, and children during the 1850s and 1860s. John Harris explores how the U.S. government went from ignoring, and even abetting, this illegal trade to helping to shut it down completely in 1867.]]> 312 John Harris 0300247338 Christian 4 history 4.11 2020 The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage
author: John Harris
name: Christian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline]]> 38103
With the rapid growth of the media in recent years, highly visible forums for discussion have multiplied, while greater academic specialization has yielded a growing number of narrowly trained scholars. Posner tracks these two trends to their inevitable intersection: a proliferation of modern academics commenting on topics outside their ken. The resulting scene--one of off-the-cuff pronouncements, erroneous predictions, and ignorant policy proposals--compares poorly with the performance of earlier public intellectuals, largely nonacademics whose erudition and breadth of knowledge were well suited to public discourse.

Leveling a balanced attack on liberal and conservative pundits alike, Posner describes the styles and genres, constraints and incentives, of the activity of public intellectuals. He identifies a market for this activity--one with recognizable patterns and conventions but an absence of quality controls. And he offers modest proposals for improving the performance of this market--and the quality of public discussion in America today.

This paperback edition contains a new preface and and a new epilogue.]]> 464 Richard A. Posner 0674012461 Christian 0 to-read 3.38 2002 Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline
author: Richard A. Posner
name: Christian
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Sorrows of Young Werther 594913 The Sorrows of Young Werther draws both on Goethe's own unrequited love for Charlotte Buff and on the death of his friend Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem. The book was an immediate success, and a cult rapidly grew up around it, resulting in numerous imitations as well as violent criticism and even suppression on the grounds of its apparent recommendation of suicide. Goethe's sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist at odds with society and ill-equipped to cope with life is now considered the first great tragic novel of European literature.]]> 164 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 014044503X Christian 4 fiction, in-translation 3.69 1774 The Sorrows of Young Werther
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: Christian
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1774
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: fiction, in-translation
review:

]]> <![CDATA[American Colonies: The Settling of North America]]> 95225
Dropping the usual Anglocentric description of North America's fate, Taylor brilliantly conveys the far more vivid and startling story of the competing interests--Spanish, French, English, Native, Russian--that over the centuries shaped and reshaped both the continent and its 'suburbs' in the Caribbean and the Pacific. It is one of the greatest of all human stories.]]> 526 Alan Taylor 0142002100 Christian 3 history 4.06 2001 American Colonies: The Settling of North America
author: Alan Taylor
name: Christian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire]]> 42972023
In August 1765, the East India Company defeated the young Mughal emperor and set up, in his place, a government run by English traders who collected taxes through means of a private army.

The creation of this new government marked the moment that the East India Company ceased to be a conventional company and became something much more unusual: an international corporation transformed into an aggressive colonial power. Over the course of the next 47 years, the company's reach grew until almost all of India south of Delhi was effectively ruled from a boardroom in the city of London.]]> 544 William Dalrymple 1635573955 Christian 3 history 4.18 2019 The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
author: William Dalrymple
name: Christian
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: history
review:
Very engagingly written, very opinionated. The moralizing about the dangers of capital at various points gets a little distracting from the history/narrative.
]]> The Sorrow of War 780889 The Sorrow of War has won worldwide acclaim and become an international bestseller]]> 233 Bảo Ninh 1573225436 Christian 0 to-read 4.01 1991 The Sorrow of War
author: Bảo Ninh
name: Christian
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy]]> 6640471
When defiant Bohemians tossed the Habsburg emperor’s envoys from the castle windows in Prague in 1618, the Holy Roman Empire struck back with a vengeance. Bohemia was ravaged by mercenary troops in the first battle of a conflagration that would engulf Europe from Spain to Sweden. The sweeping narrative encompasses dramatic events and unforgettable individuals—the sack of Magdeburg; the Dutch revolt; the Swedish militant king Gustavus Adolphus; the imperial generals, opportunistic Wallenstein and pious Tilly; and crafty diplomat Cardinal Richelieu. In a major reassessment, Wilson argues that religion was not the catalyst, but one element in a lethal stew of political, social, and dynastic forces that fed the conflict.

By war’s end a recognizably modern Europe had been created, but at what price? The Thirty Years War condemned the Germans to two centuries of internal division and international impotence and became a benchmark of brutality for centuries. As late as the 1960s, Germans placed it ahead of both world wars and the Black Death as their country’s greatest disaster.

An understanding of the Thirty Years War is essential to comprehending modern European history. Wilson’s masterful book will stand as the definitive account of this epic conflict.

]]> 997 Peter H. Wilson 0674036344 Christian 0 to-read 3.90 2009 The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy
author: Peter H. Wilson
name: Christian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2009
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]]> <![CDATA[A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910]]> 29430011 A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian’s provocative reinterpretation of the eight decades surrounding the Civil War (and leading into the twentieth century); the next volume in the Penguin History of the United States, edited by Eric Foner
In this monumental story of American imperial conquest and capitalist development, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Steven Hahn dismantles the conventional histories of the nineteenth century and offers a perspective that promises to be as enduring as it is controversial. It begins and ends in Mexico and, throughout, is internationalist in orientation. It challenges the political narrative of “sectionalism,� emphasizing the national footing of slavery and the struggle between the northeast and Mississippi Valley for continental supremacy. It places the Civil War in the context of many domestic rebellions against state authority, including those of Native Americans. It fully incorporates the trans-Mississippi west, suggesting the importance of the Pacific to the imperial vision of political leaders and of the west as a proving ground for later imperial projects overseas. It reconfigures the history of capitalism, insisting on the centrality of state formation and slave emancipation to its consolidation. And it identifies a sweeping era of “reconstructions� in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that simultaneously laid the foundations for corporate liberalism and social democracy.

The era from 1830 to 1910 witnessed massive transformations in how people lived, worked, thought about themselves, and struggled to thrive. It also witnessed the birth of economic and political institutions that still shape our world. From an agricultural society with a weak central government, the United States became an urban and industrial society in which government assumed a greater and greater role in the framing of social and economic life. As the book ends, the United States, now a global economic and political power, encounters massive warfare between imperial powers in Europe and a massive revolution on its southern border―the remarkable Mexican Revolution―which together brought the nineteenth century to a close while marking the important themes of the twentieth.]]> 608 Steven Hahn 0670024686 Christian 0 to-read 3.97 2016 A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910
author: Steven Hahn
name: Christian
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
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]]> <![CDATA[American Empire: The Rise of a Global Power, the Democratic Revolution at Home 1945-2000 (Penguin History of the United States)]]> 13543023 A compelling look at the movements and developments that propelled America to world dominance

In this landmark work, acclaimed historian Joshua Freeman has created an epic portrait of a nation both galvanized by change and driven by conflict. Beginning in 1945, the economic juggernaut awakened by World War II transformed a country once defined by its regional character into a uniform and cohesive power and set the stage for the United States� rise to global dominance. Meanwhile, Freeman locates the profound tragedy that has shaped the path of American civic life, unfolding how the civil rights and labor movements worked for decades to enlarge the rights of millions of Americans, only to watch power ultimately slip from individual citizens to private corporations. Moving through McCarthyism and Vietnam, from the Great Society to Morning in America, Joshua Freeman’s sweeping story of a nation’s rise reveals forces at play that will continue to affect the future role of American influence and might in the greater world.]]> 544 Joshua B. Freeman 0670023787 Christian 0 to-read 3.90 2012 American Empire: The Rise of a Global Power, the Democratic Revolution at Home 1945-2000 (Penguin History of the United States)
author: Joshua B. Freeman
name: Christian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2012
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]]> A History of Japan 194458 This is one of the most classic books of Japanese history and still the preeminent work on the history of Japan.

Newly revised and updated, A History of Japan is a fascinating look at the nation of Japan throughout history. Starting in ancient Japan during its early pre-history period A History of Japan covers every important aspect of history and culture through feudal Japan to the post-cold War period and collapse of the Bubble Economy in the early 1990's. Recent findings shed additional light on the origins of Japanese civilization and the birth of Japanese culture. Also included is an in-depth analysis of the Japanese religion, Japanese arts, Japanese culture and the Japanese People from the 6th century B.C.E. to the present. This contemporary classic, now updated and revised, continues to be an essential text in Japanese studies. Classic illustrations and unique pictures are dispersed throughout the book.

A History of Japan, Revised Edition includes: Archaic Japan—including Yamato, the creation of a unified state, the Nana Period, and the Heian period Medieval Japan� including rule by the military houses, the failure of Ashikaga Rule, Buddhism, and the Kamakura and Muroachi Periods periods Ealy Modern Japan—including Japanese feudalism, administration under the Tokugawa, and society and culture in early modern Japan Modern Japan—including The Meiji Era and policies for modernization, from consensus to crisis (1912-1937), and solutions through force

This contemporary classic continues to be a central book in Japanese studies and is an vital addition to the collection of any student or enthusiast of Japanese history, Japanese culture, or the Japanese Language.]]> 407 R.H.P. Mason 080482097X Christian 0 to-read 3.47 1972 A History of Japan
author: R.H.P. Mason
name: Christian
average rating: 3.47
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia]]> 138299 Kim.
When play first began the two rival empires lay nearly 2,000 miles apart. By the end, some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India.

This book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers, both British and Russian, who risked their lives playing it. Disguised as holy men or native horsetraders, they mapped secret passes, gathered intelligence, and sought the allegiance of powerful khans. Some never returned.]]> 564 Peter Hopkirk 1568360223 Christian 0 to-read 4.31 1990 The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia
author: Peter Hopkirk
name: Christian
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War]]> 12520340 Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom brims with unforgettable characters and vivid re-creations of massive and often gruesome battles—a sweeping yet intimate portrait of the conflict that shaped the fate of modern China.

The story begins in the early 1850s, the waning years of the Qing dynasty, when word spread of a major revolution brewing in the provinces, led by a failed civil servant who claimed to be the son of God and brother of Jesus. The Taiping rebels drew their power from the poor and the disenfranchised, unleashing the ethnic rage of millions of Chinese against their Manchu rulers. This homegrown movement seemed all but unstoppable until Britain and the United States stepped in and threw their support behind the Manchus: after years of massive carnage, all opposition to Qing rule was effectively snuffed out for generations. Stephen R. Platt recounts these events in spellbinding detail, building his story on two fascinating characters with opposing visions for China’s future: the conservative Confucian scholar Zeng Guofan, an accidental general who emerged as the most influential military strategist in China’s modern history; and Hong Rengan, a brilliant Taiping leader whose grand vision of building a modern, industrial, and pro-Western Chinese state ended in tragic failure.

This is an essential and enthralling history of the rise and fall of the movement that, a century and a half ago, might have launched China on an entirely different path into the modern world.]]> 512 Stephen R. Platt 0307271730 Christian 0 to-read 4.21 2012 Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War
author: Stephen R. Platt
name: Christian
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age]]> 36296465 Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country's last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the nineteenth-century Opium War.

When Britain launched its first war on China in 1839, pushed into hostilities by profiteering drug merchants and free-trade interests, it sealed the fate of what had long been seen as the most prosperous and powerful empire in Asia, if not the world. But internal problems of corruption, popular unrest, and dwindling finances had weakened China far more than was commonly understood, and the war would help set in motion the eventual fall of the Qing dynasty--which, in turn, would lead to the rise of nationalism and communism in the twentieth century. As one of the most potent turning points in the country's modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today's China seeks to put behind it.

In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to "open" China--traveling mostly in secret beyond Canton, the single port where they were allowed--even as China's imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country's decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China's advantage. The book paints an enduring portrait of an immensely profitable--and mostly peaceful--meeting of civilizations at Canton over the long term that was destined to be shattered by one of the most shockingly unjust wars in the annals of imperial history. Brimming with a fascinating cast of British, Chinese, and American individuals, this riveting narrative of relations between China and the West has important implications for today's uncertain and ever-changing political climate.]]> 555 Stephen R. Platt 0307961745 Christian 0 to-read 4.34 2018 Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age
author: Stephen R. Platt
name: Christian
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
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]]> <![CDATA[The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815]]> 345858 708 Timothy C.W. Blanning 0670063207 Christian 4 history 4.10 2007 The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815
author: Timothy C.W. Blanning
name: Christian
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: history
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]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of Africa: From the Origins of the Human Race to the Arab Spring]]> 13229892 An accessible and readable history of the people, ideas, institutions and events that have shaped Africa from the origins of human race to the Arab Spring.

Africa. The cradle of civilisation. From the dawn of human time in prehistoric Africa right through to the so-called 'Arab Spring' of 2011, Gordon Kerr offers a comprehensive introduction to the sprawling history of this enormous continent.

He begins with the origins of the human race and the development of stone age technology, through ancient and medieval times and the significance of the Arab presence, the Muslim states and the trans-Saharan trade.

Kerr continues with the rise and fall of nation states and kingdoms prior to the arrival of Europeans , Ghana, the Kingdoms of the Forest and Savanna, Yoruba, Oyo, Benin, Asante, Luba, Lunda, Lozi and many others, on to the beginning of the slave trade, and the European conquest and colonization of sub-Saharan Africa, the 'Scramble for Africa'.

Finally moving onto the often bitter struggles for independence from that period of colonization and exploitation, Kerr concludes with an assessment of Africa in the 21st century.]]> 160 Gordon Kerr 184243442X Christian 2 history 3.20 2011 A Short History of Africa: From the Origins of the Human Race to the Arab Spring
author: Gordon Kerr
name: Christian
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> A Short History of the World 698736 480 Geoffrey Blainey 1566635071 Christian 3 history 3.91 2000 A Short History of the World
author: Geoffrey Blainey
name: Christian
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2000
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Short History of the United States]]> 4528445 384 Robert V. Remini 0060831448 Christian 3 history 3.58 2008 A Short History of the United States
author: Robert V. Remini
name: Christian
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions, #326)]]> 14828812 Very Short Introduction goes right to the heart of the matter, getting to the basic and most important questions of metaphysical thought in order to understand the theory: What are objects? Do colors and shapes have some form of independent existence? Is the whole just a sum of the parts? What is it for one thing to cause another rather than just being associated with it? What is possible? Does time pass? By using simple questions to initiate thought about the basic issues around substance, properties, changes, causes, possibilities, time, personal identity, nothingness, and consciousness, Stephen Mumford provides a clear and down-to-earth path through this analytical tradition at the core of philosophical thought.
]]> 128 Stephen Mumford 0199657122 Christian 3 3.80 2012 Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions, #326)
author: Stephen Mumford
name: Christian
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Silk Roads: A New History of the World]]> 25812847
Frankopan realigns our understanding of the world, pointing us eastward. It was on the Silk Roads that East and West first encountered each other through trade and conquest, leading to the spread of ideas, cultures and religions. From the rise and fall of empires to the spread of Buddhism and the advent of Christianity and Islam, right up to the great wars of the twentieth century—this book shows how the fate of the West has always been inextricably linked to the East.]]> 636 Peter Frankopan 1408839970 Christian 3 history, premodern-world 4.16 2015 The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
author: Peter Frankopan
name: Christian
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: history, premodern-world
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]]> <![CDATA[Africans: The History of a Continent (African Studies, Series Number 108)]]> 738856 388 John Iliffe 0521682975 Christian 0 to-read 3.48 1995 Africans: The History of a Continent (African Studies, Series Number 108)
author: John Iliffe
name: Christian
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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]]> A History of Modern Europe 40308107 1400 John M. Merriman 0393667367 Christian 0 to-read 3.00 1996 A History of Modern Europe
author: John M. Merriman
name: Christian
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Penguin History of Latin America]]> 8183430
'A first-rate work of history ... His cool, scholarly gaze and synthesizing intelligence demystify a part of the world peculiarly prone to myth-making ... This book covers an enormous amount of ground, geographically and culturally' Tony Gould, Independent on Sunday]]> 705 Edwin Williamson 0141034750 Christian 0 to-read 3.80 1992 The Penguin History of Latin America
author: Edwin Williamson
name: Christian
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Oxford History of Modern Europe]]> 2842884 achievements (and failures) of key figures from many arenas--politics, technology, warfare, religion, and the arts among them--are drawn vividly, and social, cultural, and economic insights are included alongside the record of geopolitical strife. We read of the personality cult as exemplified by
the Soviet portraits glorifying Lenin; the importance of the nylon stocking in the post-World War II economic boom; the influence of religion as five new nations (Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania) emerged between 1871 and 1914--an influence that continues to be both vigorous and
deadly; and the confrontation between traditional and modern cultures captured as the railway age began in Russia.

Insightful, provocative, and intellectually rewarding, this book offers an unparalleled, informed perspective on the history of the continent.]]> 416 Timothy C.W. Blanning 0192853716 Christian 0 to-read 3.46 1996 The Oxford History of Modern Europe
author: Timothy C.W. Blanning
name: Christian
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Eighteenth Century: Europe 1688-1815 (Short Oxford History of Europe)]]> 383842
These specially commissioned chapters, written by experts in the field, address all the major issues in Europe's political, economic, religious, cultural, and international history.]]> 316 Timothy C.W. Blanning 0198731205 Christian 0 to-read 3.81 2000 The Eighteenth Century: Europe 1688-1815 (Short Oxford History of Europe)
author: Timothy C.W. Blanning
name: Christian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Penguin History of the World]]> 163611685 0 J.M. Roberts Christian 0 to-read 2.00 1976 The Penguin History of the World
author: J.M. Roberts
name: Christian
average rating: 2.00
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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]]> History of Africa 40275179 528 Kevin Shillington 113750403X Christian 0 to-read 3.89 1989 History of Africa
author: Kevin Shillington
name: Christian
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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]]> A History of Asia 326926 544 Rhoads Murphey 032134054X Christian 0 to-read 3.73 1992 A History of Asia
author: Rhoads Murphey
name: Christian
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[2,000 Years of Christ’s Power Vol. 5: The Age of Enlightenment and Awakening]]> 63321955 664 Nick R. Needham 1527109739 Christian 0 to-read 4.52 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power Vol. 5: The Age of Enlightenment and Awakening
author: Nick R. Needham
name: Christian
average rating: 4.52
book published:
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[2,000 Years of Christ's Power Vol. 4: The Age of Religious Conflict]]> 32936622 701 Nick R. Needham 1781919542 Christian 0 to-read 5.00 2016 2,000 Years of Christ's Power Vol. 4: The Age of Religious Conflict
author: Nick R. Needham
name: Christian
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity]]> 8201069 354 Mark A. Noll 1467431656 Christian 0 to-read 4.08 2001 The Old Religion in a New World: The History of North American Christianity
author: Mark A. Noll
name: Christian
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1877]]> 1536793 816 Walter A. McDougall 0060567511 Christian 0 to-read 4.13 2008 Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1877
author: Walter A. McDougall
name: Christian
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History: 1585-1828]]> 434897 656 Walter A. McDougall 0060957557 Christian 0 to-read 4.15 2004 Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History: 1585-1828
author: Walter A. McDougall
name: Christian
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> A History of the Middle East 89481 429 Peter Mansfield 0143034332 Christian 0 to-read 3.82 1991 A History of the Middle East
author: Peter Mansfield
name: Christian
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A History of the American People]]> 184630 1104 Paul Johnson 0060930349 Christian 0 to-read 4.09 1997 A History of the American People
author: Paul Johnson
name: Christian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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]]> A History of the Arab Peoples 854790
No region in the world today is more important than the Middle East: no people more misunderstood than the Arabs. In this definitive masterwork, distinguished Oxford historian Albert Hourani offers the most lucid, enlightening history ever written on the subject. From the rise of Islam to the Palestinian issue, from the Prophet Mohammed to Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi. A History of the Arab Peoples chronicles the rich spiritual, political and cultural institutions of this civilization through thirteen centuries of war, peace, literature and religion. Lauded by authorities, encyclopedic and panoramic in its scope, here is a remarkable window on today's conflicts and on the future of a glorious and troubled land.]]> 551 Albert Hourani 0446393924 Christian 0 to-read 3.87 1991 A History of the Arab Peoples
author: Albert Hourani
name: Christian
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A History of East Asia: From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-First Century]]> 11115917 456 Charles Holcombe 052173164X Christian 0 to-read 3.82 2010 A History of East Asia: From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-First Century
author: Charles Holcombe
name: Christian
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[That Old-Time Religion in Modern America: Evangelical Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (American Ways)]]> 809084 256 D.G. Hart 1566634598 Christian 0 to-read 3.81 2002 That Old-Time Religion in Modern America: Evangelical Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (American Ways)
author: D.G. Hart
name: Christian
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Story of Christianity, Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day]]> 7722354 550 Justo L. González 0061855898 Christian 0 to-read 4.11 1985 The Story of Christianity, Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day
author: Justo L. González
name: Christian
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America]]> 27310921 432 John Charles Chasteen 0393283054 Christian 0 to-read 3.90 2000 Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America
author: John Charles Chasteen
name: Christian
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The New Penguin History of Canada]]> 404324 500 Robert Bothwell 0140293493 Christian 0 to-read 3.54 2006 The New Penguin History of Canada
author: Robert Bothwell
name: Christian
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> Modern South Asia 60790137 Modern South Asia draws on the newest historical research and scholarship in the field to interpret and debate key developments in modern South Asian history and historical writing, covering the diverse spectrum of the subcontinent's social, economic and political past.



Jointly authored by two leading Indian and Pakistani historians, this definitive study offers a rare depth of historical understanding of the politics, cultures and economies that have shaped the lives of more than a fifth of humanity. This new edition on the 75th anniversary of independence and partition brings the narrative up to the present day, discussing recent events and addressing new themes such as the capture of state power in India by the forces of religious majoritarianism, economic development in the context of the 'rise' of Asia and strategic shifts occasioned by the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and China's increasing role in the region.



Providing fresh insights into the structure and ideology of the British raj, the meaning of subaltern resistance, the refashioning of social relations along lines of caste, class, religion and gender, the different strands of anti-colonial nationalism and the dynamics of decolonization, this is an essential resource for all students of the modern history of South Asia in an Indian Ocean and global context.]]> 322 Sugata Bose 1032124180 Christian 0 to-read 0.0 1998 Modern South Asia
author: Sugata Bose
name: Christian
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present]]> 58233
In this account, Barzun describes what Western Man wrought from the Renaisance and Reformation down to the present in the double light of its own time and our pressing concerns. He introduces characters and incidents with his unusual literary style and grace, bringing to the fore those that have "Puritans as Democrats," "The Monarch's Revolution," "The Artist Prophet and Jester" -- show the recurrent role of great themes throughout the eras.

The triumphs and defeats of five hundred years form an inspiring saga that modifies the current impression of one long tale of oppression by white European males. Women and their deeds are prominent, and freedom (even in sexual matters) is not an invention of the last decades. And when Barzun rates the present not as a culmination but a decline, he is in no way a prophet of doom. Instead, he shows decadence as the creative novelty that will burst forth -- tomorrow or the next day.

Only after a lifetime of separate studies covering a broad territory could a writer create with such ease the synthesis displayed in this magnificent volume.]]> 828 Jacques Barzun 0060928832 Christian 0 to-read 4.14 2000 From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present
author: Jacques Barzun
name: Christian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[African History: A Very Short Introduction]]> 738854 Africa has been known as 'the cradle of mankind', and its recoverable history stretches back to the Pharaohs. But the idea of studying African history is itself new, and the authors show why it is still contested and controversial. This VSI, the first concise work of its kind, will prove essential reading for anyone interested in the African continent and the diversity of human history.]]> 192 John Parker 0192802488 Christian 4 history 3.35 2007 African History: A Very Short Introduction
author: John Parker
name: Christian
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: history
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]]> <![CDATA[The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution]]> 50611052 Modern culture is obsessed with identity.

Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends--and yet, no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of self. In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman carefully analyzes the roots and development of the sexual revolution as a symptom, rather than the cause, of the human search for identity. This timely exploration of the history of thought behind the sexual revolution teaches readers about the past, brings clarity to the present, and gives guidance for the future as Christians navigate the culture's ever-changing search for identity.]]> 432 Carl R. Trueman 1433556332 Christian 5 4.56 2020 The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution
author: Carl R. Trueman
name: Christian
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society]]> 22237144
A provocative essay collection that finds the Nobel laureate taking on the decline of intellectual life

In the past, culture was a kind of vital consciousness that constantly rejuvenated and revivified everyday reality. Now it is largely a mechanism of distraction and entertainment. Notes on the Death of Culture is an examination and indictment of this transformation―penned by none other than Mario Vargas Llosa, who is not only one of our finest novelists but one of the keenest social critics at work today.

Taking his cues from T. S. Eliot―whose essay "Notes Toward a Definition of Culture" is a touchstone precisely because the culture Eliot aimed to describe has since vanished―Vargas Llosa traces a decline whose ill effects have only just begun to be felt. He mourns, in particular, the figure of the for most of the twentieth century, men and women of letters drove political, aesthetic, and moral conversations; today they have all but disappeared from public debate.

But Vargas Llosa stubbornly refuses to fade into the background. He is not content to merely sign a petition; he will not bite his tongue. A necessary gadfly, the Nobel laureate Vargas Llosa, here vividly translated by John King, provides a tough but essential critique of our time and culture.]]> 227 Mario Vargas Llosa 0374123047 Christian 0 to-read 3.77 Notes on the Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society
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]]> <![CDATA[Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom]]> 41962938
“Robert Louis Wilken’s new masterpiece.”—George Weigel, First Things

In the ancient world Christian apologists wrote in defense of their right to practice their faith in the cities of the Roman Empire. They argued that religious faith is an inward disposition of the mind and heart and cannot be coerced by external force, laying a foundation on which later generations would build.

Chronicling the history of the struggle for religious freedom from the early Christian movement through the seventeenth century, Robert Louis Wilken shows that the origins of religious freedom and liberty of conscience are religious, not political, in origin. They took form before the Enlightenment through the labors of men and women of faith who believed there could be no justice in society without liberty in the things of God. This provocative book, drawing on writings from the early Church as well as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, reminds us of how “the meditations of the past were fitted to affairs of a later day.”]]> 248 Robert L. Wilken 0300226632 Christian 0 to-read 4.21 Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom
author: Robert L. Wilken
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]]> <![CDATA[Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture]]> 380326
Just what is postmodernism? The average person would be shocked by its creed: Truth, meaning, and individual identity do not exist. These are social constructs. Human life has no special significance, no more value than animal or plant life. All social relationships, all institutions, all moral values are expressions and masks of the primal will to power.

Alarmingly, these ideas have gripped the nation's universities, which turn out today's lawyers, judges, writers, journalists, teachers, and other culture-shapers. Through society's influences, postmodernist ideas have seeped into films, television, art, literature, politics; and, without his knowing it, into the head of the average person on the street.

Christ has called us to proclaim the gospel to a culture grappling with postmodernism. We must understand our times. Then, through the power that Christ gives, we can counter the prevailing culture and proclaim His sufficiency to our society's very points of need.

"While pundits wring their hands over the radicalism of political correctness, speech codes, and outrageous art, Gene Edward Veith takes unerring aim at the intellectual roots of it all. The most important book for anyone who wants to know what's behind the political correctness movement." --Chuck Colson, founder, Prison Fellowship

"An ideal guide for Christians who don't want to be like the notorious military strategist preparing to fight the last war instead of the next one." --Herbert Schlossberg, author, Idols for Destruction

"Pinpoints the strengths and weaknesses of postmodern thought and points the way for Christians to take advantage of both." --E. Calvin Beisner, Covenant College]]> 256 Gene Edward Veith Jr. 0891077685 Christian 2 4.06 1994 Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture
author: Gene Edward Veith Jr.
name: Christian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1994
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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At its core a good diagnosis, but it’s dated by its assumptions that “academic jargon� won’t be relevant to the wider world and falls into polemic a bit much. At this point there are surely better options.
]]> <![CDATA[A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, Volume II: Inner Eurasia from the Mongol Empire to Today, 1260 - 2000 (Blackwell History of the World)]]> 35743244
The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production. ]]> 656 David Christian 0631210393 Christian 0 to-read 4.20 2018 A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, Volume II: Inner Eurasia from the Mongol Empire to Today, 1260 - 2000 (Blackwell History of the World)
author: David Christian
name: Christian
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2018
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]]> <![CDATA[A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific]]> 559507 national boundaries. The result is a compelling work which both describes the aspirations of European settlers and reveals how the dispossessed and marginalized indigenous peoples negotiated their own lives as best they could. The authors demonstrate that these stories are not separate but rather strands of a single history.

The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production. ]]> 544 Donald Denoon 0631218734 Christian 0 to-read 3.67 2000 A History of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific
author: Donald Denoon
name: Christian
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads (Blackwell History of the World)]]> 24196323 480 Anthony Reid 1118513002 Christian 0 to-read 3.72 2015 A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads (Blackwell History of the World)
author: Anthony Reid
name: Christian
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (Yale Nota Bene)]]> 101157 736 Camille Paglia 0300091273 Christian 0 to-read 4.00 1990 Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (Yale Nota Bene)
author: Camille Paglia
name: Christian
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
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]]> The Church in History 725683 420 Barend Klaas Kuiper 0802817777 Christian 3 history 3.87 1951 The Church in History
author: Barend Klaas Kuiper
name: Christian
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1951
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: history
review:

]]> The Abolition of Man 26804884 The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis, the most important Christian writer of the 20th century, sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society. Both astonishing and prophetic, The Abolition of Man is one of the most debated of Lewis’s extraordinary works. National Review chose it as number seven on their "100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth Century."]]> 113 C.S. Lewis Christian 5 4.12 1943 The Abolition of Man
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Christian
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1943
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> <![CDATA[You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit]]> 26568656
In this book, award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts. And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us. We might not realize the ways our hearts are being taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made. Smith helps readers recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices. He explains that worship is the "imagination station" that incubates our loves and longings so that our cultural endeavors are indexed toward God and his kingdom. This is why the church and worshiping in a local community of believers should be the hub and heart of Christian formation and discipleship.

Following the publication of his influential work Desiring the Kingdom, Smith received numerous requests from pastors and leaders for a more accessible version of that book's content. No mere abridgment, this new book draws on years of Smith's popular presentations on the ideas presented in Desiring the Kingdom to offer a fresh, bottom-up rearticulation. The author creatively uses film, literature, and music illustrations to engage readers and includes material on marriage, family, youth ministry, and faith and work. He also suggests individual and communal practices for shaping the Christian life.]]> 224 James K.A. Smith 158743380X Christian 2 theology-etc 4.09 2016 You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit
author: James K.A. Smith
name: Christian
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: theology-etc
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]]> Ideas Have Consequences 5665 190 Richard M. Weaver 0226876802 Christian 3 4.13 1948 Ideas Have Consequences
author: Richard M. Weaver
name: Christian
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1948
rating: 3
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]]> <![CDATA[Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative]]> 30423539 332 Alasdair MacIntyre 110717645X Christian 0 to-read 4.42 2016 Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative
author: Alasdair MacIntyre
name: Christian
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> Deschooling Society 223403 116 Ivan Illich 0714508799 Christian 3 education 4.06 1971 Deschooling Society
author: Ivan Illich
name: Christian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1971
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: education
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction]]> 74647
About the Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.]]> 142 Christopher Butler 0192802399 Christian 4 3.43 2002 Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction
author: Christopher Butler
name: Christian
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America (American Lectures)]]> 500046 The Shock of the New, The Fatal Shore, and Barcelona here delivers a withering polemic aimed at the heart of recent American politics and culture.

Culture of Complaint is a call for the re-knitting of a fragmented and over-tribalized America--a deeply passionate book, filled with barbed wit and devastating takes on public life, both left and right of center. To the right, Hughes fires broadsides at the populist demagogy of Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Jesse Helms and especially Ronald Reagan ("with somnambulistic efficiency, Reagan educated America down to his level. He left his country a little stupider in 1988 than it had been in 1980, and a lot more tolerant of lies").

To the left, he skewers political correctness ("political etiquette, not politics itself"), Afrocentrism, and academic obsessions with theory ("The world changes more deeply, widely, thrillingly than at any moment since 1917, perhaps since 1848, and the American academic left keeps fretting about how phallocentricity is inscribed in Dickens' portrayal of Little Nell"). PC censoriousness and 'family-values' rhetoric, he argues, are only two sides of the same character, extrusions of America's puritan heritage into the present--and, at root, signs of America's difficulty in seeing past the end of the Us-versus-Them mentality implanted by four decades of the Cold War.

In the long retreat from public responsibility beaten by America in the 80s, Hughes sees "a hollowness at the cultural core"--a nation "obsessed with therapies and filled with distrust of formal politics; skeptical of authority and prey to superstition; its language corroded by fake pity and euphemism."

It resembles "late Rome...in the corruption and verbosity of its senators, in its reliance on sacred geese (those feathered ancestors of our own pollsters and spin-doctors) and in its submission to senile, deified emperors controlled by astrologers and extravagant wives."

Culture of Complaint is fired by a deep concern for the way Hughes sees his adopted country heading. But it is not a relentless diatribe. If Hughes lambastes some aspects of American politics, he applauds Vaclav Havel's vision of politics "not as the art of the useful, but politics as practical morality, as service to the truth." And if he denounces PC, he offers a brilliant and heartfelt defence of non-ideological multiculturalism as an antidote to Americans' difficulty in imagining the rest of the world--and other Americans.

Here, then, is an extraordinary cri de coeur, an outspoken call for the reconstruction of America's ideas about its recent self. It is a book that everyone interested in American culture will want to read.]]> 224 Robert Hughes 0195076761 Christian 0 to-read 3.97 1992 Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America (American Lectures)
author: Robert Hughes
name: Christian
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterian Theology]]> 23364312 142 George P. Hutchinson 0692240616 Christian 0 to-read 4.00 1972 The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterian Theology
author: George P. Hutchinson
name: Christian
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism]]> 876776 512 Heiko A. Oberman 0801020379 Christian 0 to-read 3.86 1963 The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism
author: Heiko A. Oberman
name: Christian
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[In Defense of Tradition: Collected Shorter Writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929�1963]]> 5667 861 Richard M. Weaver 0865972834 Christian 0 to-read 4.38 2001 In Defense of Tradition: Collected Shorter Writings of Richard M. Weaver, 1929–1963
author: Richard M. Weaver
name: Christian
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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]]> Life's Ultimate Questions 651696 400 Ronald H. Nash 0310223644 Christian 0 to-read 3.97 1999 Life's Ultimate Questions
author: Ronald H. Nash
name: Christian
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography]]> 17861515 Book of Common Prayer, which first appeared in 1549. Like the words of the King James Bible and Shakespeare, the language of this prayer book has saturated English culture and letters. Here Alan Jacobs tells its story. Jacobs shows how The Book of Common Prayer--from its beginnings as a means of social and political control in the England of Henry VIII to its worldwide presence today--became a venerable work whose cadences express the heart of religious life for many.


The book's chief maker, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, created it as the authoritative manual of Christian worship throughout England. But as Jacobs recounts, the book has had a variable and dramatic career in the complicated history of English church politics, and has been the focus of celebrations, protests, and even jail terms. As time passed, new forms of the book were made to suit the many English-speaking nations: first in Scotland, then in the new United States, and eventually wherever the British Empire extended its arm. Over time, Cranmer's book was adapted for different preferences and purposes. Jacobs vividly demonstrates how one book became many--and how it has shaped the devotional lives of men and women across the globe.]]> 256 Alan Jacobs 0691154813 Christian 0 to-read 4.24 2013 The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography
author: Alan Jacobs
name: Christian
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
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]]> <![CDATA[Teach Like a Champion 3.0: 63 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College]]> 55874984 560 Doug Lemov 1119712610 Christian 0 to-read 4.34 Teach Like a Champion 3.0: 63 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College
author: Doug Lemov
name: Christian
average rating: 4.34
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]]> <![CDATA[Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference]]> 821835
When Frank Lears, a small, nervous man wearing a moth-eaten suit, arrived at Medford fresh from Harvard University, his students pegged him as an easy target. Lears was unfazed by their spitballs and classroom antics. He shook things up, trading tired textbooks for Kesey and Camus, and provoking his class with questions about authority, conformity, civil rights, and the Vietnam War. He rearranged seats and joined in a ferocious snowball fight with Edmundson and his football crew. Lears’s impassioned attempts to get these kids to think for themselves provided Mark Edmundson with exactly the push he needed to break away from the lockstep life of Medford High. Written with verve and candor, Teacher is Edmundson’s heartfelt tribute to the man who changed the course of his life.]]> 288 Mark Edmundson 0375708545 Christian 0 up-next 3.48 2002 Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference
author: Mark Edmundson
name: Christian
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Toward a Critical-Inclusive Assessment Practice for Library Instruction]]> 41758694 162 Lyda McCartin 1634000358 Christian 3 education 3.78 Toward a Critical-Inclusive Assessment Practice for Library Instruction
author: Lyda McCartin
name: Christian
average rating: 3.78
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2021/06/23
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: education
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Closing of the American Mind]]> 75812 The Closing of the American Mind, a publishing phenomenon in hardcover, is now a paperback literary event. In this acclaimed number one national best-seller, one of our country's most distinguished political philosophers argues that the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis. Allan Bloom's sweeping analysis is essential to understanding America today. It has fired the imagination of a public ripe for change.]]> 392 Allan Bloom 0671657151 Christian 3 education 3.74 1987 The Closing of the American Mind
author: Allan Bloom
name: Christian
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/27
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: education
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Charlotte Mason's Philosophy of Education (Home Education Series)]]> 54804151 394 Charlotte M. Mason 1925729435 Christian 4 education 4.86 1925 Charlotte Mason's Philosophy of Education (Home Education Series)
author: Charlotte M. Mason
name: Christian
average rating: 4.86
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: education
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning]]> 543545 224 Robert Littlejohn 1581345526 Christian 3 education 3.91 2006 Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning
author: Robert Littlejohn
name: Christian
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: education
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]]> <![CDATA[A Classical Guide to Narration]]> 56348057 114 Jason Barney Christian 3 education 4.23 A Classical Guide to Narration
author: Jason Barney
name: Christian
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: education
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]]> <![CDATA[Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning]]> 18770267 Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners.

Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned.

Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.]]> 313 Peter C. Brown 0674729013 Christian 0 to-read 4.14 2014 Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
author: Peter C. Brown
name: Christian
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Major Themes in the Reformed Tradition]]> 1775093 Book by Donald K. McKim 0802804284 Christian 0 to-read 3.00 1992 Major Themes in the Reformed Tradition
author: Donald K. McKim
name: Christian
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> Peter Pan 34268 155 J.M. Barrie 0805072454 Christian 4 fiction, speculative-fiction 4.06 1911 Peter Pan
author: J.M. Barrie
name: Christian
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1911
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: fiction, speculative-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin]]> 541427
Cornelius Plantinga pulls the ancient doctrine of sin out of mothballs and presents it to contemporary readers in clear language, drawing from a wide range of books, films, and other cultural resources. In smoothly flowing prose Plantinga describes how sin corrupts what is good and how such corruption spreads. He discusses the parasitic quality of sin and the ironies and pretenses generated by this quality. He examines the relation of sin to folly and addiction. He describes two classic "postures" or movements of sin -- attack and flight. And in an epilogue he reminds us that whatever we say about sin also sharpens our eye for the beauty of grace.]]> 202 Cornelius Plantinga Jr. 0802842186 Christian 0 to-read 4.19 1995 Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin
author: Cornelius Plantinga Jr.
name: Christian
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> Knowing God 139855 Christianity Today voted this title one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals. This edition is updated with Americanized language and spelling and a new preface by the author.

Stemming from Packer's profound theological knowledge, Knowing God brings together two important facets of the Christian faith:
1. Knowing about God and
2. Knowing God through the context of a close relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.

Written in an engaging and practical tone, this thought-provoking work seeks to transform and enrich the Christian understanding of God. Explaining both who God is and how we can relate to him, Packer divides his book into three sections: The first directs our attention to how and why we know God, the second to the attributes of God and the third to the benefits enjoyed by a those who know him intimately. This guide leads readers into a greater understanding of God while providing advice to gaining a closer relationship with him as a result.]]> 286 J.I. Packer Christian 0 dnf 4.32 1973 Knowing God
author: J.I. Packer
name: Christian
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1973
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: dnf
review:

]]>