Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
I think that it important to read, and read, and did I say read?
Barbara Tuchman wrote:
“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”
Since I write about a lot of topics and because I am a historian as well as a stand up theologian, I read a lot and I frequently quote from other people in anything that I write. Sometimes I find that those who have gone before me have said things I want to say much better than I could on my own. Thus I am not afraid or ashamed to give attribution to them, after all, it is only fair.
But today I want to share some of the books that I think are important for anyone seeking to understand our world. In a sense, this is my Reading Rainbow moment.
Most of my picks deal with history, military, diplomacy, civil rights, politics, as well as baseball. Despite the fact that I am a priest I don’t have many books on theology, religion, or faith on my list, but then the fact is that I don’t see a lot, including many of the so called classics that hold up over time. So today just some of my reading rainbow.
Here they are in no particular order:
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
Street Without Joy by Bernard Fall
A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne
A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan
Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
The Nanking Massacre by Iris Chang
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence
Hero: A Life of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda
Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality by Danielle Allen
A Soldier Once… and Always by Hal Moore
To Kill an Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Centurions by Jean Larteguy
The True Believer by Eric Hoffer
The Past that Would Not Die by Walter Lord
The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer
The Summer of ’49 by David Halberstam
Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball by George Will
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Why Don’t We Learn from History? By B.H. Liddell-Hart
They Thought they Were Free by Milton Mayer
Once an Eagle by Anton Meyer
Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military by Randy Shilts
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Boenhoffer
Black Earth: the Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder
This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Forever Free: the Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction by Eric Foner
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen
Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial by Joseph Perisco
In the Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity by Jill Lepore
On Being a Christian by Hans Kung
The Crucified God by Juergen Moltmann
The Mystery of the Cross by Alister McGrath
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
War is a Racket by Smedley Butler
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W.P. Kinsella
The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer
The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
American Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious American Civil,War General, Daniel Sickles by Thomas Keneally
Lincoln at Gettysburg by Gary Wills
Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning
Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe 1933-1945 by Raul Hilberg
And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
Lincoln’s Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac by Stephen Sears
The Nazi Doctors by Robert Jay Lifton
Sorry, no descriptions or intros included, but trust me. They are all worth the read. Anyway, those are just some of my favorites on from my Reading Rainbow. Yes, there are plenty more, but that’s all for now.
Have a great day and as always,
Peace,
Padre Steve+
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 