Source The Books

This book and the CDS are like getting an entire course in meditation and spiritual and emotional growth. Every one of the CD tracks has a really helpful tool on it. Some of the tools I now use on a daily basis. These things are keeping me grounded and sane during my stressful job at a law firm and some huge personal life transitions. I feel like I have my very own guru guiding me through life. Awesome stuff!

Researched, compiled and edited by Robert Fallon (Professor Emeritus, Lasalle University, Philadelphia), The Christian Solider is an inherently fascinating and scholastically important primary source consisting of religious tracts published for soldiers on both sides of the English Civil Wars from 1642 to 1648. Hallmarked by a carefully annotated scholarship, The Christian Solider offers insight into the justifications used to resolve the seeming paradox of having a Christian faith while employing a deadly sword, then contemporary views upon royalty, and so much more. A revealing glimpse into history, religion, and human psychology, The Christian Soldier is an impressive and strongly recommended contribution to British History reference collections.

This will be a five star book for those willing to read original medieval documents in translation.

Otherwise, steer clear.

This is a very well put together collection of documents and chronicles illustrating the ins and outs of royal politics surrounding the deposition of Richard II of England. An amazing amount of drama and personality emerges from the material assembled by Chris Given-Wilson, a leading scholar of Late Medieval England. Look up other books in this series.

Dr. Page is among the foremost scholars to focus on the Viking era. This particular piece is mostly introductory, but is of value even to those with a deeper interest in the subject. For beginners, the book presents the Vikings in their own words. Dr. Page has provided useful explication to the texts he has chosen to help the novice understand the issues and background involved. The book's introduction, which contains a priceless piece on the difficulties of language and transliteration, will give a new appreciation of this kind of scholarship to those who have only dealt with this material in translation. For the serious scholar comfortable with Runic writing and transliteration, Page's work in this volume stands as a guide to the art of teaching this difficult material. Page's work is accessible--moreso to the novice, probably, than this review. This book is a welcome addition to any Viking scholar's library.

This is a great book for understanding the relations between the nascent Christian religion, and the ancient world in which it emerged. Fr. Rahner does a great job of painting a picture of the alternating shifts of power between a Church and rulers which alternated in strength. He quotes at length from primary sources and leaves the reader with an understanding as to the strengths and weaknesses of different Church/state dynamics. This is particularly an interesting read as we reflect on our own culture's approach to Church and state relations.

Technical, but very useful information for canonical studies and general issues regarding the relations between the East and West.

Martin Gilbert, now Knighted as Sir Martin Gilbert, is one of the great historians of our time, and he has written the definitive biography of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill. He has been at work for 38 years, and the task is not yet complete. The biography itself was completed in 1988, the production of these companion volumes continues.

The biographic work itself is 8 volumes in length, and presently there are 15 additional companion volumes that contain every note and correspondence imaginable. These books get right down to the one-sentence telegrams of congratulation. To give you a sense of their scope and detail, this volume that covers 9 months runs to 1,370 pages with notes.

The books are fascinating for what they contain, and for the completeness they represent. All the information is here, these were not meant to be widely read, but to be documentary, so there is nothing missing. I also enjoy them as they give the reader a glimpse in to the world of the Biographer, a man who in this instance has spent nearly 40 years of his life on his subject.

These put the work of the Biographer in perspective. It may be more appropriate to say a Biographer of Mr. Gilbert's stature. It is often remarked that no biographical study has ever been so complete as his work of Churchill, and if you happen to have one of these books you will certainly see why. I enjoy reading them a bit at a time, as they bring you into Mr. Churchill's day, note-by-note, letter by letter, and they document an incomparable life.

Never Surrender is yet another volume in what already is the longest biography in the world. (At least according to the good people at the guiness book of world records. ) It is a collection of all the speeches and papers of Winston Churchill during the most critical phase of his Prime Ministry, and perhaps the most critical phase of World War Two. In this volume we get to witness Churchill's reaction to Dunkirk, the fall of France, and the Battle of Britain, and we also get to witness Churchill's heroic response to them. In this volume we see Churchill at his absolute best.

The offical biography is written by Martin Gilbert, a task he assumed after Randolf, Winston Churchill's son, died. The bigraphy consists of eight biographic volumes, and each volume has a few volumes of relevant documents to support it. Never Surrender is one of the document volumes which support the biographic volume "Finest Hour: 1939-1941" which is perhaps the finest volume of the entire biography. With all biogrphic volumes and the supporting books, The entire biography now stands at 23 volumes. Roughly 7-10 more are expected.

Never Surrender is probably the finest supporting volume of the entire set. It covers possibly the most important moment in British history, and it is a fine read in itself thanks to the usual outstanding work of Gilbert. The book is not for everyone, only those well versed in Churchill lore, and also keep in mind the book is not a narrative, but more like a collection of letters. But to anyone truly interested in Chuchill, or this era of English history, the book is nearly a must-have.

If you are a Churchill fan, you should get at least one volume of his "war papers" that Martin Gilbert has compiled. That way you can see the sheer volume of output that he generated, plus the sheer magnificence of the things Churchill grasped in his role, and that he communicated to those that he told to do something, those that he asked for help, those that he shared his empathy with, and, may I add, those of us many years later that get a better understanding of his role and his valor through reading his actual words written on a daily basis during the struggle of the war. I've seen where Churchill was born, and where his remains now are buried, but Churchill's words are still alive and available, through these books that Gilbert has been so useful in issuing. A note of caution--they are sometimes tedious reading, since there's over 1700 pages for 1941 alone (can you write almost 5 pages a day as Churchill did back then, for a whole year, way before there was a computer to instantly accept your keystrokes as you type?) An astounding range of material and an astounding range of human communication.

Ever wondered what comes after, "Four score and seven years ago..."? Do you know how many Constitutional rights you have, and if so, what they all are? This book will guide you through the clouds of ignorance concerning some of the most important speeches and documents in the history of our United States. It starts with Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" (something I think our society is seriously lacking these days), and ends with LBJ's speech, "The American Promise". I highly recommend this very enlightening compilation!