March 2008

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Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point
Elizabeth D. Samet

This remarkable book offers a fresh view of young American men and women preparing to go to war—not in the least a rah-rah account, but an encouraging picture that contrasts radically with most of the images we get. Samet, who has taught literature at West Point for ten years, contrasts her time at the academy with her years in graduate study at Yale, often to the disadvantage of the latter. She offers consistently thoughtful and surprising reflections that touch not only on military training but also on our common life.

Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America
John G. Turner

One of a number of recent and forthcoming studies that will correct widely accepted notions about postwar American history, Turner's deeply researched narrative belongs on the shelf of anyone thinking and writing about evangelicalism in the public square. One rich irony: Campus Crusade became both more populist and far more international in scope than the New Left movements (with all their talk about "the people") that dominated much coverage of "the Sixties"—and maintained a strong campus presence after those movements faded. There's room for another account with a more critical edge, but this book is indispensable.

Encounters of the Spirit: Native Americans and European Colonial Religion
Richard W. Pointer

"European contact with native others altered both groups." Sounds like common sense, but it went against the grain of many colonists to acknowledge that they were being influenced as well as influencing, especially when the subject was religion. Pointer offers a judicious and wide-ranging series of case studies, showing—as many other scholars are now doing—that the encounter with Native Americans was far richer and more nuanced than we've been taught to believe. This is a story full of the ever-surprising twists and turns of history, in which tragedy and hopefulness are mingled.

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