The book is presented as a follow-up to Alan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, published nearly thirty years ago. Even its cover imitates the very ’80s design of Bloom’s, minus the Miami Vice pastels. But the impressive roster of scholars, journalists, and editors takes a broader survey of the landscape than Bloom, who focused on higher education.
Atheism and religious indifference are growing in the United States. In Faith No More, recently reissued in paperback, Pitzer College sociologist Phil Zuckerman cites Pew surveys showing that “20% of Americans now claim ‘none’ as their religion.” Harris polls register an uptick of atheism, from 4 percent in 2003 to 10 percent in 2008, with another 9 percent identifying themselves as agnostics.
The author of this book, a professor of history at the University of Delaware, is an academic of diverse interests, having published volumes on the maritime communities of colonial Massachusetts and the origins of fervent Protestantism in the American South. She is also married to a retired Pentagon official who survived the terrorist atrocities of September 11, 2001.
Several years ago, Giorgio Agamben began one of his lectures by asking why he had made law and theology the areas of his recent investigation. “A first answer,” he said, “which is obviously a joke, but every joke has a serious core, would be, because these are the only two fields in which . . . . Continue Reading »
In the Shadow of the Sword The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire by tom holland doubleday, 526 pages, $29.95 Islam is widely understood by both Western and Islamic scholars to have substantially engaged with the intellectual traditions of the late antique Near East’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Introduction to Scholastic Theology by ulrich g. leinsle trans. michael j. miller catholic university of america, 392 pages, $29.95 The standard narratives of twentieth-century Catholic theology written in the past forty years typically depict the ways in which modern Catholic theologians managed . . . . Continue Reading »
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy By Eric Metaxas Thomas Nelson, 591 pages, $29.99 “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. ” Dietrich Bonhoeffer “Bonhoeffer faced a church that had bowed its knee to . . . . Continue Reading »
After the Baby Boomers:How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion by robert wuthnow princeton university press, 312 pages, $29.95 Baby boomers are becoming old news and dated scholarship. For nearly a half century after the Second World War, the cohort of babies . . . . Continue Reading »
Paradiso by dante alighieri translated by robert and jean hollander doubleday, 944 pages, $40 With the publication of Paradiso, Robert and Jean Hollander have completed their landmark translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, begun with the Inferno in 2000 and followed by Purgatorio in 2003. Reading . . . . Continue Reading »
The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary by robert alter w.w. norton, 560 pages, $35 The appearance of Robert Alter’s translation and commentary on the Psalms is being treated as a major literary event, with a lengthy review in the New Yorker of all places. What other biblical commentary . . . . Continue Reading »
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