Mother of the Church

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W.E.B. Du Bois

<p>In <a href=" Souls of Black Folk</i></a> the sociologist <a href=" E. B. Du Bois</a> introduced the concept of the “veil,” a separation of the inner lives of black Americans from their white counterparts. <i>Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil</i> is a collection of essays, poems, and short fiction that attempts to provide a nuanced look behind the veil at the lives of black Americans and to give voice to their often neglected concerns.</p> <p>Written in the aftermath of the First World War, seventeen years after <i>The Souls of Black Folk</i> and during a time when racial tension had been codified into the infamous Jim Crow laws, Du Bois touches on a wide range of topics, from the philosophical to the concrete. His over-arching message is a desire for equality. He argues strongly against colonialism, excessive materialism, and Jim Crow, and discusses how only proper education and universal suffrage can provide the foundation for a more fair society. The unique combination of different writing styles on display vividly captures both his frustration and his belief in the possibility of a future shared on an equal basis between people of all colors.</p>

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Jann Pasler

"Drawing on a passion for music and a diverse interdisciplinary toolbox, Jann Pasler invites us to read as she writes "through" music, unveiling the forces that affect our sonic encounters. In a collection of historical and critical essays, some appearing for the first time in English, Pasler deconstructs the social, moral, and political preoccupations lurking behind aesthetic taste. Arguing that learning from musical experience is vital to our understanding of past, present, and future, Pasler's work trenchantly reasserts the role of music as a crucial contributor to important public debates about who we can be as individuals, communities, and nations." "The author's approaches to musical biography and history challenge us to rethink our assumptions about important cultural issues including national identity and postmodern musical hybridity, material culture, the economics of power, and the relationship between classical and popular music. Her work uncovers the self-fashioning of modernists such as Vincent d'Indy, Augusta Holmes, Jean Cocteau, and John Cage, and addresses categories such as race, gender, and class in the early twentieth century in ways that resonate with experiences today. She also explores how music uses time and constructs narrative." "In these essays, music - whether beautiful or cacophonous, reassuring or seemingly incomprehensible - comes alive as a bearer of ideas and that offers insights into how we negotiate the world."--Jacket.

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Dale Jamieson

Morality's Progress is the summation of nearly three decades of work by a leading figure in environmental ethics and bioethics. The twenty-two papers here are invigoratingly diverse, but together tell a unified story about various aspects of the morality of our relationships to animals and to nature. Jamieson's direct and accessible essays will convince sceptics that thinking about these relations offers great intellectual reward, and his work here sets a challenging, controversial agenda for the future. -- Amazon.com.

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Malachi Martin

The shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the Church of Rome has mystified and troubled millions of Catholics as well as non-Catholics. This book reveals how influential members of that Church were ready to make their accommodation with a future under communism. The price of the Church's survival, they believed, must be a radical departure from Western institutions and the way of life we have all known. Opposed to them are other important officials who plead for a restoration of the Church to its proper role. The final decision taken by all these men, who speak for one quarter of the world's population, was made in the course of Conclave 82, a special meeting after the death of Paul VI at which the next Pope was elected. Dr. Martin, a former Jesuit, takes us behind the scenes to witness the forbidden maneuvering for Peter's crown and its worldly power; from the beginning of the seventies, many of the Cardinals have been electioneering.^ We learn why the sweeping changes of Paul VI, made--he was convinced--to assure the very survival of the Church, have pushed the Cardinals to one of the most critical decisions in our history. We watch the deal-makers, the holy men, the politicking, and the cynical alliances as the various factions attempt to gain control. All of the Cardinals are confronted by the accumulated corruption of more than a millennium: the Church as businessman, as a multi-national conglomerate involved in ownership and management of property, and as power-broker dealing in countries, continents, and human liberty. In the heart of this book, Malachi Martin recreates the actual scenario of Conclave 82. The reader will know more about the complete process from having experienced it in this book than many a Cardinal-Elector, including how illegal secret communications with the outside world are maintained.^ In a dramatic crescendo we witness a climax more moving than any play can ever be because we know it involves the future lives of nations, including our own. --Adapted from dust jacket.