Epilogues and Prayers

william-barclay

SCM Press

An iconic figure in American culture, Frank Lloyd Wright is famous throughout the world. Although his achievements in architecture are stunning, it is his importance in cultural history, Jerome Klinkowitz contends, that makes Wright the object of such avid and continuing interest. Designing more than just buildings, Wright offered a concept for living that still influences how people conduct their lives today. Wright's innovations in architecture have been widely studied, but this is the most comprehensive and sustained treatment of his thought. Klinkowitz presents a critical biography driven by the architect's own work and intellectual growth, focusing on the evolution of Wright's thinking and writings from his first public addresses in 1894 to his last essay in 1959. Did Wright reject all of Victorian thinking about the home, or do his attentions to a minister's sermon on "the house beautiful" deserve closer attention? Was Wright echoing the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or was he more in step with the philosophy of William James? Did he reject the Arts and Crafts movement, or repurpose its beliefs and practices for new times? And, what can be said of his deep dissatisfaction with architectural concepts of his own era, the dominant modernism that became the International Style? Even the strongest advocates of Frank Lloyd Wright have been puzzled by his objections to so much that characterized the twentieth century, from ideas for building to styles of living. In Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought, Klinkowitz, a widely published authority on twentieth-century literature, thought, and culture, examines the full extent of Wright's books, essays, and lectures to show how he emerged from the nineteenth century to anticipate the twenty-first. Outstanding Book, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

The Gift of Feeling

Tournier, Paul.

Humor & Entertainment

By 1808, both Britain and the United States had passed laws outlawing the transatlantic slave trade. Yet the trade covertly carried on. In the summer of 1813, in what is now Liberia, a compound of slave pens was bursting with sick and anguished captives, guarded by other African slaves. As a British patrol swooped down on the illicit barracoon, the slavers burned the premises to the ground, hoping to destroy evidence. This story can be told because of an exceptional trove of court documents that provides unparalleled insight into one small link in the great, horrific chain of slavery. Emma Christopher follows a trail of evidence across four continents to examine the lives of this barracoon's owners, their workers, and their tragic human merchandise. She reveals how an American, Charles Mason, escaped justice, while British subjects Robert Bostock and John McQueen were arrested. In court five African men―Tamba, Tom Ball, Yarra, Noah, and Sessay―courageously testified against their former owners/captors. They, and 233 other liberated men, women, and children, were relocated to Freetown, Sierra Leone. There they endured harsh lives of "freedom," while the punishment of Bostock and McQueen was fleeting. From the fragmented facts of these lives, Christopher sheds fascinating light on the early development of the nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Australia (where Bostock and McQueen were banished) and the role of former slaves in combatting the illegal trade.

Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity

History

DUNN, James D.G.

Africa

South-South Solidarity and the Latin American Left (Critical Human Rights)

Review\n"This volume so convincingly demonstrates South-South interactions are as important if not more so than interactions from the north to the south. Both scholars and a broader public with interests in solidarity and political mobilizations will warmly welcome Stites Mor's insightful contributions to our understandings of solidarity."—Marc Becker, author of Twentieth-Century Latin American Revolutions\n"Stites Mor's expertise has established her as a leading authority on histories of Latin America, solidarity, human rights and culture. This book builds on her work, positioning the region in a global context and offering new conceptual frameworks to theorize solidarity, its practices, results, and legacies. This exciting and ambitious contribution is a pleasure to read."—Tanya Harmer, author of Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America\nTransnational solidarity movements often play an important role in reshaping structures of global power. However, there remains a significant gap in the historical literature on collaboration between parties located in the Global South. Facing increasing repression, the Latin American left in the 1960s and 1970s found connection in transnational exchange, organizing with distant activists in Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. By exploring the particularities of South-South solidarity, this volume begins new conversations about what makes these movements unique, how they shaped political identities, and their lasting influence.\nJessica Stites Mor looks at four in-depth case studies: the use of legal reform to accomplish the goals of solidarity embedded in Mexico's revolutionary constitution, visual and print media circulated by Cuba and its influence on the agenda of the Afro-Asian block at the United Nations, organizing on behalf of Palestinian nationalism in reshaping Argentina's socialist left, and the role of Latin American Catholic activists in challenging the South African apartheid state. These examples serve as a much-needed road map to navigate our current political climate and show us how solidarity movements might approach future struggles.

Do this in Remembrance of Me: The Eucharist from the Early Church to the Present Day (SCM Studies in Worship & Liturgy Series)

Spinks, Bryan D.

Americas

Michael Cooke examines the essential structure of Afro-American literature as it has developed in the twentieth-century, with special attention to works by Jean Toomer, Zora Neal Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Robert Hayden, and Alice Walker.

SCM Studyguide: Liturgy, 2nd Edition

Literature & Fiction

Burns, Stephen

History & Criticism

One of this century’s most important philosophers here focuses on Plato’s Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, and Philebus and on Aristotle’s three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good. “Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith…. Gadamer’s book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers.”―Alexander Nehemas, New York Times Book Review “The translation is highly readable. The translator’s introduction and frequent annotation provide special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations.”―Choice“This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer’s works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial…. I enthusiastically recommend this…challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers.”―Francis J. Ambrosio, International Philosophy Quarterly Hans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato and Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies.

Jesus in the Trinity: A Beginner's Guide to the Theology of Robert Jenson

Politics & Social Sciences

Harvey, Lincoln

Philosophy

In this book Philip Clayton defends the rationality of religious explanations by exploring the parallels between explanatory effects in the sciences and the explanations offered by religious believers, students of religion, and theologians. Clayton begins by surveying the types of religious explanation, offering a synopsis of the most significant competing positions. He then critically examines recent important developments in the philosophy of science regarding the nature of scientific explanations―including the work of Popper, Hempel, Kuhn, and Lakatos in the natural sciences and Habermas, Weber, and Schütz in the social sciences. Clayton outlines the process of rational evaluation in these disciplines, defining the explanatory quest as the attempt to make sense of or bring coherence into subjective and intersubjective worlds. He briefly discusses explanations in philosophy and then turns to the explanatory role of individual religious experience, drawing on a coherence theory of meaning and on the conclusions from his discussion of science. Based on his defense of the doubting or “secular” believer, he concludes by advocating a model of theology in which questions about the truth of a religious tradition are intrinsic to its theology. “A valuable exposition of the thesis that the explanatory work of theology possesses formal similarities with that of the physical sciences, the social sciences, and philosophy. Clayton exhibits an impressive command of a broad area of scholarship, and his reflections are balanced and carefully argued.” –Michael J. Buckley, S.J., professor of religion at the Jesuit Theological Seminary and author of At the Origins of Modern Atheism “I know of no philosopher writing today who has dealt in as informed and thoughtful a way with the broad subject of this book. Clayton guides the reader through important discussions with ease, illuminating the path all along the way.” –Josiah B. Gould, professor of philosophy at the State University of New York, Albany.

Jesus Christ, Learning Teacher: Where Theology and Pedagogy Meet

Chater,Mark

Science & Math

“A country that seems to lean into the void but never really falls into it may actually be firmly anchored there, like the Tower of Pisa.” –Joseph LaPalombara
The Italian republic, at forty, is alive and well. Some consider this fact a miracle; many more judge it a paradox. Italy is the country of permanent crisis, where there have been forty-five national governments in forty years. Tax evasion is a way of life, one adult in three votes “communist,” the citizens have no kind word to spare for their political leaders and instructions, and the state itself is simultaneously in conflict with the Vatican and at war with the Mafia and political terrorists. How could a democracy take root, to say nothing of grow robust, in such an improbable setting?
In Democracy, Italian Style, the foremost expert on the Italian political system unravels this puzzle and, in the process, suggests that the only real paradox is the failure of so many observers, including Italians themselves, to recognize that what may be pathological for democracy in one climate may actually work in democracy’s favor in Italy. Writes Joseph LaPalombara: 
--Although Italy seems rent by conflict, the leftists, laical, and Catholic political enclaves that contribute to these clashes also serve to keep them within bounds. Terrorism itself, far from weakening Italian democracy, has actually strengthened the people’s democratic backbone.
--Italy’s much-maligned political leaders have few peers among democracies, in part because few others have been as severely tested.
--Much of Italian politics turns out to be “spettacolo” and rich in nuance. Elections, the legislative process, contacts with public officials, tax evasion, and political patronage do not mean in Italy what they may mean elsewhere.
--More than other democracies, Italy is heavily dominated by its political parties, and many deplore this condition. But, far from being the bane of Italian democracy, the parties are its saving grace. For this reason, demands for radical reform of the present system should be resisted. 
Challenging the still-dominant picture of Italy, LaPalombara asserts that in a relatively short span, the Italians have managed to forge a remarkable democracy, one that reveals degrees of toleration, freedom, and sheer political inventiveness others should find enviable.
“A wonderful book. It opens an unusual window onto Italian politics, for one thing, but it is also a remarkably sensitive an intelligent introduction to Italian society in general.” –Kai Erikson

The Go-Between God: New edition

Taylor, John V.

Europe

This prizewinning book is the first in-depth history of American strategic bombing. Michael S. Sherry explores the growing appeal of air power in America before World War II, the ideas, techniques, personalities, and organizations that guided air attacks during the war, and the devastating effects of American and British “conventional” bombing. He also traces the origins of the dangerous illusion that the bombing of cities would be so horrific that nations would not dare let it occur―an illusion that has sanctioned the growth of nuclear arsenals. “A brilliant, biting and yet not ungenerous study of a momentous idea, the idea of war from the air.”―Philip Morrison, Scientific American “Sherry’s book demands to be read.”―D. J. R. Bruckner, New York Times Book Review “A big, heroic and chilling story, and Michael Sherry tells it with style, controlled passion, and analytical sophistication. This book is the best kind of strategic history.”―Ken Booth, International Affairs “Both informative and provocative.”―John Gooch, Times Higher Education Supplement “Sherry describes the course of the war in brilliant detail as a tug of war between what it was felt planes should do and what, at any moment, they could do.”―Garry Wills, New York Review of Books “This riveting study has a distinct significance in today’s world.”―Library Journal

God of Justice and Mercy: A Theological Commentary on Judges

Hamley, Isabelle

“Why did none of the devout create psychoanalysis? Why did it have to wait for a completely godless Jew?” Freud once asked. In this book, the eminent historian and Freud scholar Peter Gay enters the long-running controversy about the relationship between religion and psychoanalysis. Gay takes seriously Freud’s claim that he was an atheist and argues that atheism was an essential stance for the making of psychoanalysis. He contends, in fact, that Judaism was not essential and that psychoanalysis is not a “Jewish science,” as both anti-Semites and ardent Freudians have often assumed. Peter Gay begins by discussing why psychoanalysis could only have been conceived by an atheist. According to him, Freud saw science and religion as absolutely at odds with each other. While some theologians and analysts have attempted to forge an alliance between psychoanalytic and religious positions, these attempts at accommodation have failed and must fail. Psychoanalysis is not a religion, and the two comprise wholly incompatible styles of thinking about the world. Gay then deals with the question of whether Freud’s Jewish background contributed to the creation of psychoanalysis and describes Freud’s secular Judaism: while Freud was very much aware of his Jewishness and was in fact proud of it, this had nothing to do with the making of psychoanalysis itself. True, Freud himself saw a possible link between his Jewishness and his daring: as a Jew he was treated ass an outsider and therefore, he thought, could approach delicate topics such as sexuality more boldly than he would have if he had been thoroughly lodged on the inside. However, Gay maintains that this is at best a weak statement. Writing with his customary wit and charm, Gay not only discusses Freud’s life and personality as they affected his ideas on religion but also compares Freud’s thoughts on religion to those of William James, Charles Darwin, Paul Tillich, and a host of Enlightenment figures. The result is a book that will richly reward ever reader.

Young, Woke and Christian: Words from a Missing Generation

Turner, Victoria

Biographies & Memoirs

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