A professor at Union University explores the lives of Tolkien, Lewis, and their friends. It’s an introductory book for those unfamiliar with these people.
Category Archives: Non-fiction
Building a Better Citizen
With unemployment holding at a little over 10%, Sol Stern points out E. D. Hirsch’s Curriculum for Democracy. Hirsch observed that students need to have a core of knowledge in order to read well, despite being versed in reading skills. Skills alone are not the sum of learning.
Stern gives an illustration of the problem facing many American students.
My children were students at P.S. 87 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, also known as the William Tecumseh Sherman School. Our school enjoyed a reputation as one of the city’s education jewels, and parents clamored to get their kids in. But most of the teachers and principals had trained at Columbia University’s Teachers College, a bastion of so-called progressive education, and militantly defended the progressive-ed doctrine that facts were pedagogically unimportant. I once asked my younger son and some of his classmates, all top fifth-grade students, whether they knew anything about the historical figure after whom their school was named. Not only were they clueless about the military leader who delivered the final blow that brought down America’s slave empire; they hardly knew anything about the Civil War, either. When I complained to the school’s principal, he reassured me: “Our kids don’t need to learn about the Civil War. What they are learning at P.S. 87 is how to learn about the Civil War.”
So when will they actually learn details of the Civil War? When they’re trying to relax in front of the History Channel between specials on UFOs and Nostradamus?
True Horror
On Combat, by Grossman and Christensen
It’s considered prudent of late to announce it when the book you’re reviewing is one you’ve gotten for free. I’ll not only admit, but brag, that I got Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s and Loren W. Christensen’s On Combat as a gift. Col. Grossman (whose Two-Space War books I’ve reviewed here and here) sent it to me in response to a question I asked him about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
A book like this will be of no interest to some of you, and I think the authors would be the first to admit that if you’re one of them, it very likely speaks well of you. But for those involved with violence, whether as soldiers or police officers, or those who love them, or just armchair storytellers like me, this study is both valuable and fascinating.
The art of war has been studied since before history was written. Societies have learned, and passed on, the training and coping techniques necessary to help the warrior to conquer and survive. It’s only recently, as technology has altered the face of warfare in ways unimaginable to our ancestors, that it has become possible—and necessary—to figure out precisely what happens to people in a deadly fight, and what can be done to help them overcome one of the most traumatic experiences of life. Continue reading On Combat, by Grossman and Christensen
Giving Real Gifts at Christmas
Christmas Books
Here are some Christmas book recommendations from the good people at Reformation 21. Stephen Nichols, who adds in another post Richard Doster’s Crossing the Lines, which I reviewed last summer.
Sean Lucas, who actually links to the books in his post.
All of these men recommend a new, beautiful release of Pilgrim’s Progress by Crossway Books. What I’ve seen of the illustrations look superbly fantastic. It’s worth our attention.
Bold, the Young Viking Poets
Robert Ferguson, author of The Vikings: A History, claims “a mastery of poetry was a must for any young Viking who wanted to make a name for himself. . . . Young Icelandic warrior-poets (or ‘skalds,’ as they were known) such as Gunnlaug Snaketongue, Kormak Ogmundarson, and Hallfred the Troublesome Poet, were documenting the ecstasies and despairs of romantic love as early as the late 10th century, some 200 years before the medieval troubadours we typically credit as being the world’s first true Romantic poets.”
Untrustworthy Memory in Print
Jonathan Yardley writes about some of the great memoirs of the past and the dredge we have clogging the half-priced bookshelves today. He says, “On the one hand, we want ‘authenticity and credibility’ in autobiographical writing; on the other, we want to be entertained, which can sometimes lead writers to exaggeration or invention. . . . [But] what the memoir boom has in fact given us is too many dull or forgettable memoirs, precious few of which have enriched our literature but most of which have simply encouraged the narcissism of their authors.”
Is America Becoming Undemocratic?
John Fund says voter fraud maybe be stealing your vote. It already has stolen others. Fund is the author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy.
Aren’t Looking For Something Appealing
Our friend Jimmy Davis reviews Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian.