Featured Today
Head and Heart: American Christianities
edited by Garry Wills
published October 4, 2007
It's interesting that at a time when so many of America's top public intellectuals (especially on the left) seem to incline toward agnosticism or atheism, the person some would cite as our greatest PI -- Garry Wills -- is a practicing Roman Catholic. Go figure. Wills does a characteristically excellent job here, arguing that American religiosity has for centuries alternated between that of enlightenment (head) and evangelicalism (heart).
Related Reading:
Lincoln at Gettysburg
Wills won a well-deserved Pulitzer for this masterpiece -- one of our all- time favorites.
Friday, July 18, 2008
I've suspended updating the48er. C'est la guerre.
The American Idea: The Best of the Atlantic Monthly
edited by Robert Vare
published October 16, 2007
What is "The American Idea"? The Atlantic's been in the American idea business for 150 years now, but the editor of this big, superb anthology acknowledges that there's no quick answer to that question. Here are American Ideas -- in evocations ranging from lofty ideals to uncomfortable realities to keen humor.
The Shock Doctrine:
The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism
by Naomi Klein; published September 18, 2007
After various disasters, "free market fundamentalism" has often been imposed on unwilling peoples.
The Slave Ship: A Human History
by Marcus Rediker; published October 4, 2007
Day-to-day realities faced by those aboard the transatlantic slave trade's primary tool: the slave ship.
Roger Tory Peterson: A Biography
by Douglas Carlson; published October 1, 2007
Ornithologist and wildlife artist Peterson helped set the stage for modern environmentalism.
Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights
by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose; published Oct. 23, 2007
Molly Ivins' final book recounts examples of BushCo's relentless attack on core American rights and values.
Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
by Woody Holton; published October 2, 2007
"Unruly" farmers, it turns out, extracted democratic concessions from the Constitution's elitist framers.
The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man
by Amir Aczel; published October 4, 2007
Teilhard: a Jesuit priest whose Church censored and exiled him for his efforts to mediate science and faith.
George Seldes
born 117 years ago today
An heir to the muckraking traditions of Lincoln Steffens, Seldes got his start in journalism in Pittsburgh, moving to London in 1916 as a correspondent for UPI. He reported on international affairs for the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s and thereafter published numerous successful books and a widely read political newsletter.
Gillo Pontecorvo
born 88 years ago Monday
Best known for his almost universally acclaimed 1966 film The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo joined the Italian Communist Party in 1941 and became a Resistance leader. Though he broke with the Party after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, he maintained his belief in many of the essential tenets of Marxism. His films tended to be highly political.
