Biography: general Books

Book SynopsisA summary and analysis of the Supreme Court's impact on American law and government during the tenureship of Warren Burger. Earl M. Maltz contends that in many areas of constitutional law the Burger Court produced the most liberal jurisprudence in history.

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Book SynopsisGraham Barnett was killed in Rankin, Texas, on December 6, 1931. His death brought an end to a storied career, but not an end to the legends that claimed he was a gunman, a hired pistolero on both sides of the border, a Texas Ranger known for questionable shootings in Company B under Captain Fox, a deputy sheriff, a bootlegger, and a possible “fixer” for both law enforcement and outlaw organizations. In real life he was a good cowboy, who provided for his family the best way he could, and who did so by slipping seamlessly between the law enforcement community and the world of illegal liquor traffickers. Stories say he killed unnumbered men on the border, but he stood trial only twice and was acquitted both times.Barnett lived in the twentieth century but carried with him many of the attitudes of old frontier Texas. Among those beliefs was that if there were problems, a man dealt with them directly and forcefully—with a gun. His penchant to settle a score with gunplay brought him into confrontation with Sheriff W. C. Fowler, a former friend, who shot Barnett with the latter’s own submachine gun on loan. One contemporary summed it up best: “Officers in West Texas got the best sleep they had had in twenty years that Sunday night after Fowler killed Graham.”Trade ReviewThis is one hell of a story. Graham Barnett surveys the storied life of a man who moved back and forth on both sides of the law—and did so with great ease and requisite skill, and with little conscience. This is what makes this biography stand out; it is the story not of an iconic lawman but the account of a notorious gunfighter in the mold of the most legendary ‘anti-heroes’ of the American Southwest."" - Michael L. Collins, author of Texas Devils: Rangers and Regulars on the Lower Rio Grande, 1846–1861 ""Barnett’s story absolutely deserves to be told—he was a fascinating character. Like most good biographies, this one gives the reader a good feel for the times and the circumstances that affected the people of that era."" - Mike Cox, author of The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900 and Time of the Rangers: Texas Rangers from 1900 to the Present

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Book SynopsisEstablished in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum honors the iconic Texas Rangers, a service that has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. Thirty-one individuals—whose lives span more than two centuries—have been enshrined in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. They have become legendary symbols of Texas and the American West.In The Ranger Ideal Volume 3, Darren L. Ivey presents capsule biographies of the twelve inductees who served Texas in the twentieth century. In the first portion of the book, Ivey describes the careers of the “Big Four” Ranger captains—Will L. Wright, Frank Hamer, Tom R. Hickman, and Manuel “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas—as well as those of Charles E. Miller and Marvin “Red” Burton. Ivey then moves into the mid-century and discusses Robert A. Crowder, John J. Klevenhagen, Clinton T. Peoples, and James E. Riddles. Ivey concludes with Bobby Paul Doherty and Stanley K. Guffey, both of whom gave their lives in the line of duty.Using primary records and reliable secondary sources, and rejecting apocryphal tales, The Ranger Ideal presents the true stories of these intrepid men who enforced the law with gallantry, grit, and guns. This Volume 3 is the finale in a three-volume series covering all of the Texas Rangers inducted in the Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, Texas.

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Book SynopsisA mother’s moving and honest memoir about the premature birth of her daughter—and the strength and grace that can be found in the midst of life''s greatest challenges  In her early thirties, Kasey Mathews had it all: a loving husband, a beautiful two-year-old son, and a second baby on the way. But what seemed a perfect life was shattered when she went into labor four months early, delivering her one-pound, eleven-ounce daughter, Andie. The first time Kasey was wheeled into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), nothing prepared her for what she saw: a tiny, fragile baby in a tangle of tubes and wires. All at once, Kasey was confronted with a new and terrifying reality that would test the limits of love, family, and motherhood. In this riveting, honest, and often humorous memoir, Preemie chronicles the journey of one tiny baby’s tenacious struggle to hold on to life and the mother who ultimately grew with her. From hospital waiting rooms to the offices of alternative practitioners, from ski slopes to Symphony Hall, Kasey tries to make meaning of her daughter’s birth and eventually comes to learn that gifts come in all sizes and all forms, and sometimes... right on time.

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Book SynopsisAnne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons is the biography of a writer who vividly depicted alien creatures and new worlds. As the author of the Dragonriders of Pern series, McCaffrey (b. 1926) is one of the most significant writers of science fiction and fantasy. She is the first woman to win the Hugo and Nebula awards, and her 1978 novel The White Dragon was the first science-fiction novel to appear on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. This biography reveals a fascinating and complex figure, one who creates and re-creates her fiction by drawing on life experiences. At various stages, McCaffrey has been a beautiful young girl who refused to fit into traditional gender roles in high school, a restless young mother who wanted to write, an American expatriate who became an Irish citizen, an animal lover who dreamed of fantasy worlds with perfect relationships between humans and beasts, and a wife trapped in an unhappy marriage just as the women's movement took hold. Author Robin Roberts conducted interviews with McCaffrey, her children, friends, and colleagues, and used archival correspondence and contemporary reviews and criticism. The biography examines how McCaffrey's early interests in theater, Slavonic languages and literature, and British history, mythology, and culture all shaped her science fiction. The book is a nuanced portrait of a writer whose appeal extends well beyond readers of her chosen genre.Trade Review"On the eve, more or less, of my trip to Eurocon at Copenhagen, let me assure you that [A Life with Dragons] is excellent. She [Robin Roberts] manages to know more about why I write than I do, and does it in such a smooth manner that I was bloody well glad she wrote it." - extract from Anne McCaffrey's website"

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Book SynopsisThe standard work on Fitzgerald, revised, enlarged, and updated; Since its first publication in 1981, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur has stood apart from other biographies of F. Scott Fitzgerald for its thoroughness and volume of information. It is regarded today as the basic work on Fitzgerald and the preeminent source for the study of the novelist. In this second revised edition, Matthew J. Bruccoli provides new evidence discovered since its original edition. This new edition of Some Sort of Epic Grandeur improves, augments, and updates the standard biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald.Trade ReviewMatthew J. Bruccoli is always able to look through the events themselves to the essential fact about Fitzgerald: his existence as an artist, and not only to how it came about, but what it came to. Some sort of epic grandeur is exactly what Fitzgerald had. It is a perfect title for this book, for the grandeur is there, in the struggle to create memorable work. I fully expect that this will be the indispensable biography of a very great American writer, for the spirit of the man is in the facts, and these, as gathered and marshaled by Bruccoli over thirty years, are all we will ever need. But more important, they are what we need. - James Dickey; ""Impeccably researched...both comprehensive and judicious... Bruccoli brings Fitzgerald vividly alive."" - Newsweek; ""This masterpiece contains exactly what we need to know about this dazzling figure."" - Publishers Weekly; ""It is difficult to imagine any work on Fitzgerald and his literary product that will supplant this one."" - The New Yorker; ""Indispensable and definitive."" - The Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisWhat happens when an expert on grief is faced with the slow decline of her beloved mother? Like A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis, Singing Mother Home offers an inside look at the struggles of an ""expert"" in coping with loss. Donna S. Davenport was forced to rethink the traditional academic approach to the process, which implied that the goal of grief resolution was to end the attachment to the loved one. Instead, she embarked on a personal exploration of her own anticipatory grief. This intimate narrative forms the core of her book. It is emotionally wrenching, but it also provides hope for those going through similar experiences. Just as Davenport used her family's tradition of singing to comfort her mother, readers will be encouraged to find their own sources of comfort in family and legacy. The book concludes by describing psychological approaches to grief and recommending further reading.Trade ReviewThis is a unique book by a professional who understands the field of loss and grief....Polgnantly heartbreaking. - Melba Vasquez, President, American Psychology Association's Division on Counseling Psychology

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Book SynopsisJonathan Safran Foer meets Jeffrey Moussaieff Mason in a poignant, provocative memoir of  survival, compassion, and awakening to the reality of our food system.Jenny Brown was ten years old when she lost a leg to bone cancer. Throughout the ordeal, her constant companion was a cat named Boogie. Years later, she would make the connection between her feline friend and the farm animals she ate, acknowledging that most of America’s domesticated animals live on industrialized farms, and are viewed as mere production units. Raised in a conservative Southern Baptist family in Kentucky, Brown had been taught to avoid asking questions. But she found her passion and the courage to speak out.The Lucky Ones introduces readers to Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary which Brown established with her husband in 2004. With a cast of unforgettable survivors, including a fugitive slaughterhouse cow named Kayli; Albie, the three-legged goat; and Quincy, an Easter duckling found abandoned in New York City, The Lucky Ones reveals shocking statistics about the prevalence of animal abuse throughout America’s agribusinesses.  Blending wry humor with unflinching honesty, Brown brings a compelling new voice to the healthy-living movement—and to the vulnerable, voiceless creatures among us.

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Book SynopsisBorn in a small river town in the largely Muslim province of Sandzak, Munevera Hadzisehovic grew up in an area sandwiched between the Orthodox Christian regions of Montenegro and Serbia, cut off from other Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her story takes her from the rural culture of the early 1930s through the massacres of World War II and the repression of the early communist regime to the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. It sheds light on the history of Yugoslavia from the interwar kingdom to the break-up of the socialist state. Hadzisehovic paints a picture not only of her own life, but also of the lives of other Muslims, especially women, in an era and an area of great change. Readers are given a loving yet accurate portrait of Muslim customs pertaining to the household, gardens, food and dating - in short, of everyday life. She writes from the inside out, starting with her emotions and experiences, then moving outward to the facts that concern those interested in this region: the role of the Ustashe, Chetniks and Germans in World War II; the attitude of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia toward Muslims; and the tragic state of ethnic relations that led to war again in the 1990s. Some of Hadzisehovic's experiences and many of her views may be controversial. She speaks of Muslim women's reluctance to give up the veil, the disapproval of mixed marriages and the problems between Serb and Croat nationals. Her benign view of Italian occupation is in stark contrast to her depiction of bloodthirsty Chetnik irregulars. Her analysis of Belgrade's Muslims suggests that class differences were just as important as religious affiliation. In this personal story, Hadzisehovic mourns the loss of two worlds - the orderly Muslim world of her childhood and the secular, multi-ethnic world of communist Yugoslavia.

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Book SynopsisRunning late for work one morning in September 1994, Tom Hargrove, communications director for an international agricultural aid organization in Cali, Colombia, was mildly annoyed when he spotted a roadblock, or reten, manned by soldiers in fatigues. He chafed at the delay, but told himself that guerrillas and kidnappers didn't operate on a main highway in broad daylight. But Hargrove had been dreadfully mistaken. Despite his assertions that he worked for a non-profit agricultural agency, he was forced at gunpoint into a vehicle and driven into the mountains by communist narco-terrorists who believed he was a valuable hostage. For almost a year, Hargrove was held by the guerillas and moved from one remote location to another. To maintain his grip on sanity, he recorded his daily experiences in makeshift journals: in a checkbook; on children's notebooks; and on scraps of paper scrounged during his ordeal. Hargrove's story, originally published in 1995, was the basis for the major motion picture ""Proof of Life"", starring Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. Now available again in paperback, ""Long March to Freedom"" chronicles one man's spirited determination to hang onto life and faith amid nearly impossible circumstances.

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Book SynopsisAn emotional, page-turning account of unhealed trauma and personal transformation that will break your heart and change your mind, in the tradition of Somebody's Daughter, A Piece of Cake, and Jesmyn Ward's Men We ReapedRiveting, honest, and raw, I Can Take It From Here recounts Lisa Forbes's harrowing journey into darkness — including a fourteen-year-long stint in a maximum-security prison — and her fierce resolve to understand the effects of the trauma she endured, to take personal responsibility for her actions, and to ensure that her history does not dictate her destiny.The youngest of six children, Lisa grew up in a Chicago housing project where she endured sexual, religious, and emotional abuse as a little girl. A voracious reader, she graduated high school at 15 and went to work as a secretary in a downtown insurance office, became pregnant at 16 and, at 19, unexpectedly and uncharacteristically committed a violent act, stabbing and killing the father of her daughter. Providing powerful insights into what we as a society need to learn and confront in the ongoing epidemic of mass re-incarceration, Lisa is a stunning example of an individual who through determination, knowledge, and hard work has been able to reclaim her own life.The book ends with Lisa's rousing call to action to support the people—as well as the shorthanded employers—who need the help, and need each other, more than ever.

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Book SynopsisFINALIST - Governor General's Literary Award for NonfictionWINNER - 2023 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writers Prizes for Nonfiction FINALIST - Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for NonfictionAn unforgettable coming-of-age memoir about a Black boy adopted into a white, Christian fundamentalist familyPerfect for fans of Educated, Punch Me Up to the Gods, and Surviving the White Gaze“An affecting portrait of life inside the twin prisons of racism and unbending orthodoxy.”  --Kirkus ReviewsA powerful, experiential journey from white cult to Black consciousness: Harrison Mooney’s riveting story of self-discovery lifts the curtain on the trauma of transracial adoption and the internalized antiblackness at the heart of the white evangelical Christian movement.Inspired by Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man the same way Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me was inspired by James Baldwin, Harrison Mooney’s debut memoir will captivate readers with his powerful gift for storytelling, his keen eye for insight and observation, and his wry sense of humor.As an adopted and homeschooled Black boy with ADHD at white fundamentalist Christian churches and tent revivals, Mooney was raised amid a swirl of conflicting and confusing messages and beliefs. Within that radical and racist right-wing bubble along the U.S. border in Canada's Bible Belt, Harrison was desperate to belong and to be visible to those around him.But before ultimately finding his own path, Harrison must first come to understand that the forces at work in his life were not supernatural, but the same trauma and systemic violence that has terrorized Black families for generations. Reconnecting with his birth mother--and understanding her journey--leads Harrison to a new connection with himself: the eyes looking down were my true mother’s eyes, and the face was my true mother’s face, and for the first time in my life, I saw that I was beautiful.

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Book SynopsisDuring nearly half a century of practicing law, Arthur L. Liman represented the very best ideals of his profession. He was renowned both for his brilliance as a corporate lawyer and for his commitment to public service and pro bono work. Vanity Fair called him a "big trouble" lawyer,i.e., the lawyer you call when you're in it. In this candid memoir, written in the months before his death, Liman discusses his life in the law from the moment Roy Cohn's performance at the McCarthy hearings inspired him to become a lawyer (in order to stand against lawyers like Cohn) to his influential investigation of the Attica prison uprising, through his role as chief counsel in the Iran-Contra hearings, with looks at many fascinating cases, clients, and controversies along the way. Full of lively portraits of the moguls, financiers, politicians and criminals with whom Liman worked, and grounded in his insightful, provocative opinions on the practice of law and on today's legal issues, Lawyer is an absorbing read.

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Book SynopsisSince joining the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1963 and becoming its youngest executive director, Aryeh Neier has been at the forefront of efforts to fight for civil liberties, human rights, and social justice. Whether he was confronting police abuse, defending draft opponents or defending free speech, as he did at the ACLU out-maneuvering the Reagan administration over military abuses in El Salvador, promoting accountability for political crimes in Argentina and Chile or supporting dissidents in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as he did at Human Rights Watch or trying to eradicate landmines, promote stability in the Balkans or establish an International Criminal Court, as he has at the Open Society Institute Aryeh Neier has been methodical, relentless, and unusually successful. In this look back at an amazing career, Neier both reflects on the unintended consequences of some of his victories and why, if he had anticipated them, he might have done things differently and reveals that some of the various movements of which he was a part had their greatest triumphs under the most adverse circumstances.

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Book SynopsisWhy would a priest turn his back on his priesthood and walk away from his religious vocation and its demanding responsibilities? Why did he become a priest in the first place? And how do such men make reparations for their defection? Both Sides of the Altar strives to look at these questions through one such priest’s life, that of Frank Morgan. This book was a “Labor of Love” for Fr. John A. Hardon, s.j., now deceased, who urged him to put pen to paper to tell his story. It traces Frank’s life during the seminary, his life as a priest in the 1940s and 1950s, and as a layperson in the years that follow. Through it Frank walks through his own thought processes as he looks back over 60 years, evoking the raw emotion and feelings of his decision to leave behind his priestly ways, and enter the life of a Lay Person. It compares how he was treated both with kindness and with disdain. His narrative shows his constant persistence in trying to serve the Roman Catholic Church throughout his entire life. Truly showing both sides of the altar as only a man who lived it can tell. Insights into the current plights the Catholic Church faces, as well as poignant observations on solutions are presented in a loving and well told tale through his own voice. Frank’s underlying love of the Church and its teachings are a constant theme as he shares his life story.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewI remember the spring of 1928. I was almost twelve years old. We opened, and there was a brand new roll of music on the Merry-Go-Round. The tune it played, “Ramona,” had been recently popular. I was familiar with it and delighted in humming and singing the song. The words were pure romance to me. I could just see “Ramona” with the “rambling rose in her hair,” meeting her lover “by the Waterfall.” He “blessed the day she taught him to care.” My naive impression at my age of the beauty of their idyllic love was not disturbed when he admitted he “dreaded the dawn when he awoke to find her gone.” I had yet to learn of that kind of love. I only knew that I felt sorry for him when she had to leave and spoil their romantic meeting “by the waterfall.”

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Book SynopsisWritten by the renowned British historian who has been described as both utterly thorough and humanely delicate, Jeremy Black offers a guided tour through the mind of Agatha Christie and life during the Great World Wars. His incomparable treatment of literary craft developing alongside global military engagement nearly overshadows the natural draw of the crime drama that is the subject of his book. Indeed, the “prurience and sensationalism” of crime is not as exciting as Black’s aptitude for drawing the reality from the fiction (and periphery sources), giving Christie a much louder voice than she might ever have dreamed. If Christie is also moralist and mirror to her times, Black here plays his part as the detective and reveals layers of previously unmined truths in her stories. Hercule Poirot as a character is masterfully imagined, but Black shows us how he is inseparable from Christie’s turbulent and changing world. He also illuminates significant social commentary in Christie’s fiction, and in so doing Black often uses his authority to vindicate Christie’s work from hastily, at times stupidly, applied labels and interpretations. He is especially magnificent in his chapters, “Xenophobia” and “The Sixties.” Black nevertheless gives due recognition to Christie’s critics when they have something relevant and reasonable to say, and hence the reader finds yet another service in Black’s comprehensive review of the reviewers over the expanse of Christie’s writing career. For all this, Black proves himself to be a worthy history-teller because he can aptly ‘detect’ the meaning of stories that seeks to answer the past and guide the present. His erudition runs much deeper than his ability to navigate the stores of resources available on the subject, and the reader gets a glimpse of this early on when in the introduction he proffers his own defense for writing about the importance of a Hercule Poirot. Black writes, “the notion of crime had a moral component from the outset, and notably so in terms of the struggle between Good and Evil, and in the detection of the latter. Indeed, it is this detection that is the basis of the most powerful strand of detection story, because Evil disguises its purposes. It has to do so in a world and humanity made fundamentally benign and moral by God.” The Golden Age of detective novels represents much more than a triumph of a literary genre. It is in its own right a story of how the challenge to address the problem of evil was accepted. Its convergence with the plot-rich narrative of the twentieth century in the modern age renders Black’s account a thrilling masterpiece, seducing historians to read fiction and crime junkies to read more history.

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Book SynopsisVolume 2 of Josef Pieper’s three-part autobiography is here presented for the first time in English translation. The volume represents not just a simple continuation of a seamless story. The first volume dealt with Pieper’s life from his birth in 1904 to the time of World War 2. The current volume deals with the post-war years, 1945–1964, offering a personal documentation of the institutional rubble through which an emerging academic and philosopher had to find his way. This included finding work, re-establishing himself in the family home, completing his academic education, and beginning to teach philosophy in a climate of despair and disillusionment. In this context, the quintessential Pieper emerges. His positive philosophy of being, firmly based on Plato and Thomas Aquinas, finds extraordinary resonance with students, who flock to his lectures in surprising numbers — seeking and finding a positive way forward. His dedication to training teachers sees him declining higher academic posts in Germany in favor of work which, though less lucrative and more obscure, he considered more fruitful. These years are also marked by his fiercely independent stance over against the Catholic hierarchy — despite his staunch adherence to the tradition values of Christianity. His popularity as a philosopher and teacher quickly spread to America, where he was invited to teach at famous universities. His fame led to further travels — to Switzerland, England, France, Spain, India, China, Saigon, and Thailand. Such travels enriched his thinking and nourished the open-mindedness of the Western philosopher.

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Book SynopsisVolume 2 of Josef Pieper’s three-part autobiography is here presented for the first time in English translation. The volume represents not just a simple continuation of a seamless story. The first volume dealt with Pieper’s life from his birth in 1904 to the time of World War 2. The current volume deals with the post-war years, 1945–1964, offering a personal documentation of the institutional rubble through which an emerging academic and philosopher had to find his way. This included finding work, re-establishing himself in the family home, completing his academic education, and beginning to teach philosophy in a climate of despair and disillusionment. In this context, the quintessential Pieper emerges. His positive philosophy of being, firmly based on Plato and Thomas Aquinas, finds extraordinary resonance with students, who flock to his lectures in surprising numbers — seeking and finding a positive way forward. His dedication to training teachers sees him declining higher academic posts in Germany in favor of work which, though less lucrative and more obscure, he considered more fruitful. These years are also marked by his fiercely independent stance over against the Catholic hierarchy — despite his staunch adherence to the tradition values of Christianity. His popularity as a philosopher and teacher quickly spread to America, where he was invited to teach at famous universities. His fame led to further travels — to Switzerland, England, France, Spain, India, China, Saigon, and Thailand. Such travels enriched his thinking and nourished the open-mindedness of the Western philosopher.

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Book SynopsisWhat is influence and why might real influencers be those whose names we no longer remember? Ken Weisbrode embarks on an exploration to trace the most powerful strands of cultural and intellectual influence, and demonstrates it might not be what we think it is. "The influencer is a person who made an art of absence in the trade of cultural and sometimes political capital. The ones in this book represent a range of vocations, from politics to diplomacy to novel-writing, but almost all were cultural entrepreneurs. They were not puppet masters, gray eminences, unsung heroes, or Svengalis––although one or two have been portrayed thus. Rather, their influence is spread by virtue of their willful disappearance, of its perpetuation of a new language and cultural standard, and of their many conscious and unconscious imitators. The reason they had such influence was precisely because a part of their method was to be less visible in order to watch their ideas, habits, and styles proliferate without their names necessarily being affixed. […] Yet, to understand such a modus operandi is necessary today when the proliferation of social media influencers are squandering cultural capital so quickly by the simultaneous promotion of their products, above all, themselves."

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Book SynopsisHilaire Belloc was a man of many parts. Half English, half French, with an American wife, Belloc was a man who thought and traveled widely. He was the best essayist in the English language. His historical studies covered much of European history. He wrote a book on America, another on Paris, another on the Servile State. He sailed his boat The Nona around England and into the Island of Patmos. He walked to Rome and, with his four companions, through Sussex. While he did so, he thought, reflected, laughed, wondered. He was a born Catholic. He saw the depths of European civilization in its classical and Christian heritage, as well as in their being lost. Bellow saw Islam as an abiding power. His books on walking are classic. He walked much of Europe, England, France, Italy, Spain, and North Africa. His insight into people was extraordinary. He wrote verses for children, poetry, studies of English kings and French cardinals. He was prolific. He had a son killed in World War I and another in World War II. He had many friends; his friendships with Chesterton and Baring were lasting and profound. When we “remember” Belloc, we remember much of what we are, much of what we ought to be. Belloc was something of a sad man, yet he laughed and sang and was in many ways irrepressible. Reading Belloc is both a delight and an education. He belonged to a tradition of letters that was never narrow but knew that to see something small, one had to see the whole picture, both human and divine. We remember Belloc to find out who we are and who we ought to be – men who sing and laugh and wonder about the mystery of things given to us.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface: Part 1 Chapter 1 “On the Character of Enduring Things” Chapter 2 On Endurance and Fortitude Chapter 3 At the Lake of Tiberias Chapter 4 On FameChapter 5 “A Place Where I Have Never Yet Seen” Part 2 Chapter 6 The Path to Rome: Belloc’s Walk a Century Later Chapter 7 Permanence Chapter 8 On the Vanity of Learned Men Chapter 9 Ars Taedica Chapter 10 On the Usefulness of the New Year Part 3 Chapter 11 “Islam Will Not Be the Loser” Chapter 12 A Certain Loss Chapter 13 On Thinking Continually of Those in Beatitude Chapter 14 On Remembering “A Remaining Christmas”@ Chapter 15 On Being Close to Things Primary Part 4Chapter 16 On Towns and Places Chapter 17 The Fight for Good Things Chapter 18 On Irony as the “Avenger of Truth” Chapter 19 Belloc’s Mrs. Markham on the Americans Chapter 20 “Ultimate Knowledge upon the Ultimate Realities” Part 5Chapter 21 Belloc on the Metaphysics of Walking Chapter 22 On the Loneliest Month Chapter 23 “In the Presence of So Wonderful a Thing” Chapter 24 “What We Have Long Called England” Part 6 Chapter 25 The Charm of Belloc: “On Caring Too Much” Chapter 26 October Thirtieth, 1902 Chapter 27 In Persuit of Nobody Chapter 28 Belloc’s Infamous Phrase Chapter 29 Harbour in the North Chapter 30 The Unsuccessful Man Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe late historian Marvin O’Connell left a legacy of brilliant prose and pictures of the past, and in this book the reader at long last has access to O’Connell’s own story. Fr. Bill Miscamble, a noted historian and scholar in his own right, attributes to O’Connell the title ‘Master’ above all on account of his ability to know what matters and then write about it “in the way that all great stories are told.” In addition to his status as histor (giver of history), O’Connell was a long-time professor and chair of the history department at the University of Notre Dame. He is author of the masterwork, Sorin, which presents the riveting and dynamic narrative of the founding of Notre Dame on the inspired ambition of Edward Sorin, C.S.C. O’Connell was not a man who “genuflected in hagiography.” Rather, in the manner he lived faithfully yet soberly under the shining shadow of the Golden Dome, O’Connell told stories in the manner they were lived and with all the accompanying faults and triumphs. In Miscamble’s thorough introduction of O’Connell, he writes that the latter “utilized his striking talents as a historian as an integral part of his fundamental vocation as a priest. [O’Connell] once described the historian as a veritable ‘midwife to our faith,’ who must capture, as best as evidence will allow, the truth of the past.” This position lends itself to the structure of this work. The first part is the sadly incomplete memoirs of Fr. O’Connell, wherein the reader meets the historian and moves with eagerness and confidence into the essays that follow. Highlights of these collected essays include thoughts on Cardinal Newman, Belloc, the Spanish Inquisition, and the historical perspective of evangelization in the United States and modernism at large. What one reads are stories that might have been lost but are here preserved in what can with all moral certainty be called truthfulness. As his friend Ralph McInerny once qualified him, O’Connell combined compassion and judgment such that his histories were always indeed primarily stories and, as the reader well knows, stories have layers and threads and are not told simply for their conclusions. O’Connell succeeds in showing one how human history is written. Above all, he reveals that history is made by humans, but must also be remembered and deciphered by humans who cannot forego leaving their own marks and prints on everything they encounter (in memory or otherwise). The objectivity we seek can be found in one historical account alone, asserts the priest-storyteller, yet a sharp eye to the past is always consonant with a compassionate desire to understand. Bill Schmitt, Fr. Bill Miscamble and David Solomon do posterity a service by giving us this man and his masterful engagement of history. These friends of O’Connell deem the historian’s passion for truth-in-context to be foundational for shaping stories that matter, including his own. "This artful combination of memoir and selected essays reawakens our memory of Father O'Connell in all his immense personal charm, intellectual energy, rich erudition, keen wit, and steadfast dedication to his interlocking callings as priest and historian." —J. Philip Gleason, Emeritus Professor, History Department, University of Notre Dame"The work of a master historian, these memoirs and essays are reliable in recounting what happened, insightful in judging how and why, and eloquent in presenting it all with a flair and wit rarely equaled in historical writing. Moreover, they come forth from a Catholic faith so deep and secure that it need not be imposed on the reader. Rather, they do what good historical writing does, placing the reader into a past that can be seen and felt, recognized and understood. Whether it be his colorful accounts of the tumultuous life and times of Thomas More, or the valiant struggles of Newman and the Oxford Movement, or his own seminary training and teaching in St. Paul, or his fortunes as a graduate student at Notre Dame under the tutelage of the eminent Monsignor Phillip Hughes—whatever the topic, reading O’Connell’s history gives one the gift of being able to say, I remember that happening and I wasn’t even there!"—Michael J. Baxter, Director of Catholic Studies, Regis University in Denver"O'Connell was a master story teller. He was not, however, just a story teller. He was painstakingly rigorous in what and how he taught. His stories always perfectly illustrated a point, but they were never a substitution for the truth--rather an illustration of it." —Bradley Birzer, Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies, Hillsdale College

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Book SynopsisIn Recovering Jesus, Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld leads you through an honest and careful study of the testimony of Jesus's first-century followers, as well as more recent scholarly and popular witnesses. The result is a journey that will challenge you to move beyond the Jesus you think you know to a deeper understanding of who he was and why he matters. This text will be a valuable tool in academic settings, as well as for believers and nonbelievers alike who want to know the real Jesus.

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