Are you the type who just can't seem to settle for the latest pulp novel at the beach or by the poolside? Cruxnews.com gives an overview of some recommended heavy reading for those not content to be summer lightweights.
I think I'd enjoy "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves".
I've been reading Paul Johnson's "History of Christianity". Absolutely fascinating. 2000 years of the same problems, over and over again. Anyone who wants a Christian theocracy in the US must read this. Mixing state and Church has failed every time it has been tried.
Mr. Johnson also makes the great point that Protestants didn't necessarily promote capitalism; it's just that capitalism flourishes when the state is disengaged from the religious hierarchy and doesn't thwart merchants.
For lighter reading, I've read Orson Scott Card and Raymond Feist's "The Redemption of Althalus".
I also read "Understanding Variation" by Wheeler. Essential if you want to understand statistics. Very easy to read, with clear examples.
Some Heavy Reading For The Beach - Cruxnews.com
Are you the type who just can't seem to settle for the latest pulp novel at the beach or by the poolside? Cruxnews.com gives an overview of some recommended heavy reading for those not content to be summer lightweights.
The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
(240 pages, Columbia University Press, ISBN: 0-231-13186-0)
Focusing on the Catholic intellectual critique of modernity during the period immediately before and after the turn of the twentieth century, this provocative and original book examines how the Catholic Church attempted to retain its identity in an age of pluralism. It shows a Church fundamentally united on major issues - quite unlike the present-day Catholic Church, which has been the site of a low-intensity civil war since the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Defenders of the faith opposed James, Dewey, and other representatives of Pragmatism as it played out in ethics, education, and nationalism. Their goals were to found an economic and political philosophy based on natural law, to appropriate what good they could find in Progressivism to the benefit of the Church, and to make America a Catholic country.
The Church Confronts Modernity explores how the decidedly nonpluralistic institution of Christianity responded to an increasingly pluralistic intellectual environment. In a culture whose chief value was pluralism, they insisted on the uniqueness of the Church and the need for making value judgments based on what they considered a sound philosophy of humanity. In neither capitulating to the new creed nor retreating into a self-righteous isolation, American Catholic intellectuals thus laid the groundwork for a half-century of intellectual vitality.
Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America
by Michael Dobbs
(336 pages, Knopf, ISBN: 0375414703)
Shortly after America’s entry into World War II, Adolf Hitler ordered an extensive sabotage campaign against the United States to disrupt the production of tanks and airplanes and blow up bridges and railroads. Eight German saboteurs were dispatched across the Atlantic by U-boat, one team landing in Amagansett, Long Island, the other near Jacksonville, Florida. They brought with them enough money and explosives for a two-year operation and traveled inland to explore potential targets.
The full story of this audacious endeavor is a remarkable account of a terrorist threat against America. Michael Dobbs describes the saboteurs’ training in Nazi Germany, their claustrophobic three-week voyage in submarines, and their infiltration into American life. He explores the reasons each volunteered, and their links to a network of Nazi sympathizers in the United States. He paints a portrait of the group’s leaders: George Dasch, a onetime waiter who dreamed of leaving his personal mark on history, and Edward Kerling, a fanatic Nazi caught between his love for his mistress and his love for his wife. And he shows how the FBI might never have captured the saboteurs had one of them not helped J. Edgar Hoover transform a hapless manhunt into one of his proudest accomplishments. A military tribunal, a historic Supreme Court session, and one of the largest mass executions in American history provide a stunning climax to a dangerous but failed mission.
Taking Sex Differences Seriously
by Stephen E. Rhoades
(362 pages, Encounter Books, ISBN 1893554937)
Most discussions of sexuality today assume that differences between men and women are insubstantial, and that the boundary between the masculine and the feminine is highly porous. To reflect the idea that male and female roles have been “socially constructed,” they speak of gender instead of sex, and ridicule the double standard of “studs” and “sluts.” Because men and women are virtually interchangeable, it is argued, men should do an equal share of domestic work so that women can compete equally with men outside the home.
This vision of androgyny has compelling aspects. But Dr. Steven Rhoads finds one problem: whatever we might like to believe, sex distinctions remain a deeply rooted part of human nature. In Taking Sex Differences Seriously, he explores male/female disparities in aggression and dominance, in sexuality and nurturing. He shows how denial of these differences has affected phenomena such as the sexual revolution and fatherless families, and policies such as Title IX and the call for universal day care. But he also says that society is improved by discouraging some natural tendencies, like men’s temptation toward predatory sex, and encouraging others, like women’s greater interest and talent in caring for babies.
Architects of the Culture of Death
by Donald DeMarco and Benjamin Wiker
(375 pages, Ignatius Press, ISBN 1586170163)
The "Culture of Death" has become a popular phrase, and is much bandied about in academic circles. Yet, for most people, its meaning remains vague and remote. DeMarco and Wiker have given the Culture of Death high definition and frightening immediacy. They have exposed its roots by introducing its "architects." In a scholarly, yet reader-friendly delineation of the mindsets of twenty-three influential thinkers, such as Ayn Rand, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, Alfred Kinsey, Margaret Sanger, Jack Kevorkian, and Peter Singer, they make clear the aberrant thought and malevolent intentions that have shaped the Culture of Death.
Still, this is not a book without hope. If the Culture of Death rests on a fragmented view of the person and an eclipse of God, hope for the "Culture of Life" rests on an understanding and restoration of the human being as a person, and the rediscovery of a benevolent God.
Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness
by Myrna Blyth
(352 pages, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312312873)
Blowing the whistle on a job she herself did for over ten years at Ladies Home Journal as editor-in-chief, Blyth reveals the almost institutionalized selling of a liberal/do-gooders message to women through characterizing women themselves as victims. Playing on women's compassion and ability to be hooked into "uplifting" stories with a moral or happy ending, American media has convinced the most well-educated, rich and healthy audience in history that they are miserable.
Blyth dissects why liberal celebrities' messages aren't scrutinized and are in fact presented with a halo of approval; why middle class American women have been sold stress as the new scourge of modern life; why media paints a negative picture of women's lives today, at exactly the moment when women have more money, privilege and choices than ever before; why the club of liberal women who run magazines and television shows have an outsize and lock-step affect on what we "know" about the major issues of the day; why the incestuous relationship between celebrities and media has corrupted journalism; and why magazines rarely tell stories about the majority of women whose conservative views don't mesh with their own.
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynn Truss
(240 pages, Gotham Books, ISBN 1592400876)
A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.' We see signs in shops every day for "Banana's" and even "Gateaux's". Competition rules remind us: "The judges decision is final."
Now, many punctuation guides already exist explaining the principles of the apostrophe; the comma; the semi-colon. These books do their job but somehow punctuation abuse does not diminish. Why? Because people who can't punctuate don't read those books! Of course they don't! They laugh at books like those! Eats, Shoots and Leaves adopts a more militant approach and attempts to recruit an army of punctuation vigilantes: send letters back with the punctuation corrected. Do not accept sloppy emails. Climb ladders at dead of night with a pot of paint to remove the redundant apostrophe in "Video's sold here."
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Alfred Hitchcock,
Since Cruxnews.com isn't on JimRob's
list of publications to be excerpted I have taken the liberty of posting this article in full....good find!
FReegards from Toronto!