Professor Robertson has rendered a most valuable service in bringing together in this volume scattered magazine articles of Reinhold Niebuhr dealing with the function of the Church in modern society. These writings are arranged in five sections each of which has an interpretative comment by the editor: (1) Common Worship in the churches of America; (2) The relationship of the faith of the Church to the whole range of moral and political problems; (3) The Anglo-Saxon view of the social ethics of the Church contrasted with the "continental" or Barthian view; (4) Niebuhr's analysis and criticism of the Catholic conception of the Church (deals with Eastern Orthodox and Anglo-Catholic as well as Roman Catholic Church); (5) Writings dealing with the ecumenical movement. The editor's purpose is to outline what might be called Niebuhr's view of the doctrine of the Church. But for most readers the chief value of the book is its revelation of the prophetic nature of Niebuhr's thinking. This is Niebuhr at his most incisive, stimulating, best, probing at problems with which all churchmen are familiar, giving us the benefit of his searching criticism, revealing the weakness of much of contemporary American Christianity. Niebuhr's reputation is such that this book should command a wide reading.
Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Meridian Books
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1959
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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