DWD's Reviews

  Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in 2019. Read by Arthur Morey. Duration: 12 hours, 52 minutes. Unabridged. Barry Strauss is a professor of the history of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. As the title clearly says, Strauss tells his reader/listeners about what he judges to be the ten most important Roman emperors and ends up telling a decent political history of the Roman Empire along the way. Bronze statue erected c.175 AD of  Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), one of the Roman Emperors featured in  this book. When I say he chose the ten most important emperors, that doesn't mean he chose the ten best emperors. He has more than one emperor that demonstrates how a bad leader can abuse the political consensus, damage the political system, and leave a lot of confusion in his/her wake. But, change is not necessarily a bad thing - especially when handled by talented leaders like Augustus and Constantine.  This was an interesting listen and well-read by Arthur Morey. I did enjoy how

Published by Hourly History in January of 2023. Hourly History  publishes histories and biographies that you can read in about an hour. That can be a tough job for big topics in history like "The Industrial Revolution" or "The Roman Empire" but it is just about right for a short biography.  Little Richard (1932-2020) was an early rock and roll singer with a series of top 40 hits from 1956-1958, including songs like "Tutti Frutti", "Lucille," and "Long Tall Sally." His style was raucous and loud compared to most singers, except maybe for Jerry Lee Lewis. He also was one of the first black artists to cross over to white audiences.   Unlike most singers from that era, Little Richard never really disappeared from the public eye. He had a series of comebacks and kept on showing up with comeback tours, songs on movie soundtracks, live greatest hits albums and TV and movie appearances.  Little Richard was known as a flamboyant showman. He wore

  Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company in October of 2022. Read by Shamaan Casey. Duration: 10 hours, 57 minutes. Unabridged. Jackie Robinson.  He is an icon of sports. And politics. And American history. All fans of baseball know at least the broad strokes of the story of Jackie Robinson (1919-1972) and how he integrated baseball. This book offers a detailed re-telling of that story with a twist - a look at how Jackie Robinson's faith led him to this path and helped sustain him. Robinson's early life, his time in service during World War II and his college sports career and his relationship with his wife are all covered. The biggest single part of the book is, appropriately, the story of how he and Branch Rickey (the head of the Brooklyn Dodgers) worked together to integrate Major League Baseball in 1947. The book also looks at how Rickey's faith led him to act to make the world a more just place by acting in such a symbolic manner. Jackie Robinson stealing hom

  Published by Spello Press in 2019. Brian Zahnd is a pastor in Missouri and he is concerned with American Christianity. American Christianity is in trouble because it has stopped doing what it is supposed to do. For so many Christians, Christianity has stopped being a counter-cultural force preaching love and grace. Instead, it has become, at best indifferent to the flaws in American culture. At worst, it is a cheerleader for American culture, as though Jesus was born in America, drank Coca-Cola and ate Chick-fil-A at least twice a week. Zahnd points out on page 34 that this is not a new thing - it has happened over and over again in history. "Rome. Byzantium, Russia, Spain, France, England and Germany have all done it. Seventeen centuries ago the Roman church got tangled up in imperial purple. In the 1930s, the German evangelical church got tangled up in Nazi red and black." A Christian flag at the January 6 riot. Is the place for a symbol of Christ on the side of rioters w

  Published in 2022 by Zondervan. Read by the author, Andy Stanley. Duration: 5 hours, 11 minutes. Unabridged. Andy Stanley brings a warning to churches across the United States: Do not become involved in partisan politics. Jesus is not a Republican and he is not a Democrat. He did not come to rule this world and he did not make his church a government for this world. Nevertheless, Stanley has been criticized by church members he has known for years for not taking splashy political stands. . Stanley goes on to detail very practical reasons not to get involved in partisan politics, such as ticking off 40% of your potential mission field by endorsing a certain candidate and being known as a Democrat or Republican church.  The answer? Neither.  By identifying with a political candidate or a party, you are rejecting your fellow Christians who disagree with you by identifying with a party more than identifying with the body of Christ. This is literally a heresy. The body of Christ has work

  Published in 2013 by The Great Courses. Lectures by William R. Cook and Ronald B. Herzman. Duration: 6 hours, 10 minutes. Unabridged. The idea behind The Great Courses is a simple one - take a college lecture course given by an expert that knows how to give an interesting lecture and package it up as an audiobook that anyone can listen to. In the case of this audiobook, there are two college professors that have a great chemistry together and really enjoy a discussion of St. Francis. Before this audiobook, I knew only the barest of details of St. Francis so I found the entire discussion interesting and informative. I do have a rather big complaint about the way the information was presented, however. They start with a biography of St. Francis up until the moment when he becomes recognized by the Pope and his movement is up and going. From that moment, they move to a thematic presentation and the listener hears about moments in his life that are not tied to any sort of biography.  For

  Published in 2022 by Macmillan Audio. Read by Eric Jason Martin. Duration: 6 hours, 39 minutes. Unabridged. McKibben looks back at his life in the suburbs in the 1960s and the 1970s and modern America and compares the two, In certain circles this is an invitation to complain about the modern world with comments like, "When I was a kid, we didn't have all of this blah, blah, blah foolishness." This is not that sort of book. McKibben looks at three general areas: 1) The way that history was taught and the ways that he perceived that his country acted ("The Flag"). He grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts and was a tour guide as a young man for tourists who came to celebrate the bicentennial in 1976. The more he has learned, the more he knows that he was taught a simplistic, feel-good version of American history in school; 2) The things that his church taught him and how churches have fared over the intervening years ("The Cross"). He grew up and was very

  Published in 2017 by Hourly History I am an avid reader of history, but I have areas of weakness that I am perfectly willing to shore up a bit, but I don't want to invest a ton of time. I want to know a bit more, not become an expert. The Russian Revolution one of those areas for me. I know a lot more than most people, but I can clearly see the that there is a lot that I don't know. Grigori Rasputin (1869-1916) Rasputin is, of course, an iconic, almost mythical personality of the Russian Revolution. This series specializes in short biographies and histories that will take the average reader about an hour to read. There are plenty of people and historic events that I would like to know a little more about, but not necessarily commit to reading a 500 page biography or history.  Rasputin is one of those people for me - interesting but not really worth that much of an investment of my time. I've read a few biographies from Hourly History and, without a doubt, this was the be

  Published in 2019 by Hourly History Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) is the founder of the controversial Christian sect knows as Christian Science or The Church of Christ, Scientist in the late 1800s. I picked this short biography because I know something of the teachings of Christian Science, I knew next to nothing about its founder. Mary Baker Eddy grew up in small town New Hampshire and was often sickly as a child and young adult. It is unclear whether her illnesses were due to physical or nervous problems. As was typical for the time, life was hard and there were many tragic deaths in the early part of her life, including an older brother who served as a mentor, her husband while she was pregnant, a fiance and her mother. Her family took over raising her son and did not let her see him for years. Her son's caretakers moved away and let him believe that Mary Baker Eddy was dead. They did not speak to one another again until he was 34 years old. None of this, of course, make Mary Ba

  Published in 2020 by Hourly History King Philip II (1527-1598) ruled Spain at its most powerful. This is the Spain that took over Portugal, consolidated its New World holdings, conquered the Philippines, stopped Ottoman naval expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, stopped Protestant expansion in several areas yet lost the Spanish Armada to the English and suffered a series of losses in the Netherlands. It was the first that could reasonably claim that the sun never set on its empire.  Philip II. Painting by Antonio Moro Philip's personal life takes up a lot of this book. For such a powerful man, his personal life had to humble him. He had multiple wives who died from a variety of ways, but usually related to giving birth.  He also lost several children. His oldest son suffered from physical and mental illnesses that were so pronounced that the Philip II stepped in and barred his son from being next in line for the throne. That son died in custody, possibly by making himself ill

Published in 2018 by Amulet Books. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is well-known as one of the few ministers who stood up to the Nazis and kept his ministry completely independent of the totalitarian regime. Eventually, his principled stand led to his death in prison. Along that path there was a point where he closed down his ministry and used his connections to get a position in military intelligence. At first, this sounds like he totally gave in to the Nazis. However, it turns out that the military intelligence and the Nazi intelligence departments were completely separate entities and they did not get along very well. Bonhoeffer used that mistrust and friction to his advantage - he sent intelligence to the Allied powers, he helped with plans to sneak Jews out of Germany. These were easy actions on a moral level - if you believe the regime in charge of your country is evil, you will work against it. But, the more Bonhoeffer thought about it, the more he considered taking more decisive action - a

  Published by eChristian in November of 2021. Read by the author, John Pavlovitz Duration: 6 hours, 19 minutes Unabridged. John Pavlovitz is a minister who has done a lot of thinking about how Jesus told us to act and how formal "name brand" Christianity often acts to those that it deems as "less". We all know that thinking of people as "less" is not really a thing Christ endorses, but it is still an all too often sad reality. Who are the less that have been in the news lately? Immigrants, LGTBQ people, Muslims...and more.  Pavlovitz asks: "If God is love and if you're emulating that God, then you should be loving. If you claim a religious worldview or have spiritual aspirations, those should yield more compassion, not less; more decency, not less; more generosity, not less. If not, what's the point of having them?" Great question. What's the point? I've had these thoughts more than once in the last 6 years, coinciding with the c

  Published in 2015 by ChristianAudio.com Read by the author, Caleb Kaltenbach. Duration: 6 hours, 3 minutes. Unabridged. I checked out this audiobook from my local library using the Overdrive app. I highly recommend this app, but it does have a small failing - it does not include any sort of reviews of the digital ebooks or audiobooks. It only includes the publisher's description and the publisher's description of this audiobook only tells part of the story.  The author and narrator, Caleb Kaltenbach As the title says, Kaltenbach did indeed grow up with gay parents. They married young and divorced after a few years. His mother lived life as a married couple with another woman (this was pre-gay marriage) and his father lived as a closeted gay man. His mother hated Christians because of Westboro Baptist Church -type protesters, but to be fair to his mother, there are plenty of people that express the same thoughts that they publicly proclaim in private situations. Kaltenbach do

Published in August of 2015 by Tantor Audio. Read by the author, Brant Hansen. Duration: 4 hours, 21 minutes. Unabridged. Brant Hansen came to a realization that righteous anger, an emotion that a lot of my fellow Christians seem to adore should not actually be a tool in the Christian toolbox. It's on display all over social media and at public events like the current spate of contentious school board meetings. For example, recently a former member of 2 Contemporary Christian bands was seen at the forefront of a mob that was menacing people in the parking lot after a school board meeting. He yelling, "You can live freely, but we will find you!" at medical personnel who testified in favor of masks. He became the story and all Christians got a black eye as Taliban-type extremists.  The author, Brant Hansen Instead, Hansen is trying his best to take the words of God seriously when he says  to avoid anger. Here are 20 verses that give that counsel. He describes the change

Published in 1999 by Nan A. Talese, an imprint of Doubleday. The Desire of the Everlasting Hills  is the third book in  The Hinges of History Series  by  Thomas Cahill.  It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization.  Nearly 20 years ago I read the is book and the second book in this series,  The Gifts of the Jews   and then parked them on a bookshelf. I never read more books in the series and simply forgot all about them. With the pandemic quarantine came a purging of the bookshelves and these books returned to the to-be-read pile.  Overall, I enjoyed The Gifts of the Jews , despite some slow spots. I had high hopes for this book because I thought it would fit in well with the strongest parts of its predecessor. But, I found this book to be a mostly plodding history with an absolutely excellent and inspiring last chapter attached to it.  And, I have solved the mystery of why I never pursued the rest of the b

  Published by Tantor Audio in November of 2020. Read by Joana Garcia. Duration: 5 hours, 25 minutes. Unabridged. This is the second time in less than a month that I am reviewing and audiobook that covers the topic of immigration written by an Hispanic immigrant. In both cases, I came to the book highly prepared to like it and in both cases I was disappointed. The author, Karen Gonzalez I have no problem at all with the points that Gonzalez makes in this book. As a Christian, I think many Christians have been on the wrong side of this issue for decades (including me, for a while). However, this book just doesn't seal the deal. It says a lot of the right things, but it doesn't do the trick. Issues: 1) There are pieces of sloppy research, or maybe just sloppy writing or editing. For example, when the author asserts that the concept of borders came around with the end of the Thirty Years War and the series of treaties known as the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. I think she was refe

  Published in 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Read by Dave Hoffman. Duration: 6 hours, 38 minutes. Unabridged This audiobook is a decent introductory history of World War I from the point of view of the common English soldier, a decent (but incomplete) look at the philosophical and religious trends of the West before and after World War I, decent introductory biographies of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and really kind of a pleasant mess of a book. Tolkien (1892-1973) and Lewis (1898-1963) All of these topics are thrown into the mix in a willy nilly. If that concept bugs you, this is not your book. I found it to be a pleasant enough listen, even if not particularly deep.  I think the author makes his best points about the complete and utter waste and despair of a World War I battlefield when he compares it to the waste and desolation of Tolkien's Middle Earth battlefields and its heroes. The heroes are not generally the big leaders - they are flawed. They refuse to fight, have precondition

  Published by The Great Courses in 2013. Read by the author, Robert Garland. Duration: 24 hours, 28 minutes. Unabridged. Robert Garland Robert Garland gives his listeners a look at the "other side of history" - meaning from the point of view of the lower and middle classes, slaves, regular soldiers, women and children from the Stone Age through Medieval Europe. Occasionally, he looks at the rich, but not quite famous as well. He also explores how religion worked in every day life, family life, marriage ceremonies, how many jobs were performed and funeral rites in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire and Medieval Europe, particularly England. Garland is a lecturer at Colgate University in New York State so he delivers this information through a series of 48 half-hour lectures. Asking for all 48 lectures to be 5 star quality is asking too much, but I found this to be an enjoyable and educational listen. Highly recommended. I rate thi

  Published in 2019. Lenny Duncan, as noted in the title, is a black pastor in a very white church body - the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). I belong to a different Lutheran denomination, but I recognize the congregations and the issues he is talking about. I found out about this book from an interview on the morning news on NPR. Duncan took a unique route to becoming a pastor. He was a homeless teen, he was a prostitute, he served time in jail and he was seeking something spiritual when he attended an ELCA church and heard the Lutheran teachings on God's grace and his life was changed. Now, he is a pastor telling this church that he loves that it must do better. To be fair to the ELCA, this letter is not just applicable to that denomination, it is applicable to most of the mostly white mainline protestant denominations. But, comments like this one are more than fair for all Lutheran churches: " People are deciding not to come to our churches because we have al

  Published on July 14, 2020 by Kalorama. Read by Suzie Althens. Duration: 12 hours, 3 minutes. Unabridged. Kristen Kobes du Mez comes to this book from the perspective of a person of faith. This is important because this book is highly critical of a certain strand of Christianity. This strand of Christianity has replaced the values of Jesus with the values personified by John Wayne. Don't get me wrong - I have watched my fair share of John Wayne movies. I always stop to watch "The Cowboys" and the big muddy fistfight scene in "McClintock!" "Rooster Cogburn and the Lady" is one of my favorite westerns, even if it isn't a favorite of most John Wayne fans. But, the lessons taught in most John Wayne movies are not the lessons taught by Christ. His movies rarely model turning the other cheek and often endorse revenge. They are escapist entertainment, but hardly the basis of a religious movement. Or, are they? There is a movement in evangelical Christia