Soldiers of Christ brings together for the first time in one volume eleven critical writings about the saints from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.To understand European culture and society in the Middle Ages it is essential to understand the role of Christianity. And there is no better way to understand that role than to study that religion's greatest human heroes; the saints. For if Christians regarded God as their king; then the saints were the Christian nobility; human members of the divine court. To use one much-repeated phrase; they served as "soldiers of Christ." The purpose of this volume is to present in English translation some of the most significant records of the lives of those people considered to be saints. In exploring these works the reader will be presented with rich evidence about the development of religion and society in western Europe from the late Roman empire to the great changes that transformed European society around the year 1000.Each text is newly annotated and prefaced by the editors; and a general introduction on saints and saints' lives makes the volume ideal for students and general readers. Included are lives of Martin of Tours; Augustine of Hippo; Germanus of Auxerre; Boniface of Crediton; Sturm; Willibrord; Benedict of Aniane; Leoba; Willehad of Northumbria; and Gerald of Aurillac; as well as the Hodoeporicon of Saint Willibald.
#325953 in Books 2002-03-07Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .75 x 7.00l; 1.71 #File Name: 0262523310386 pages
Review
20 of 24 people found the following review helpful. Daddy Stalin and Warbucks: Friends 'Til the EndBy PanopticonmanBuck-Morss's tale of the sputtering; guttering end of the modern Fordist disciplinary project both in the U.S.A and in the Soviet Union is a stunner. Most compelling are the historical insights -- told with particular elegance through the comparison of patriotic and advertising images -- that show how similar both projects really were! Some of the historical tidbits stick in the mind never to be dislodged: Daddy Stalin asking Henry Ford to come build him a factory to make tractors in the middle of the Depression. Lenin's admiration for Frederick Taylor. Amazing how the salvation for both communists and capitalists was the same industrial regime; the same worker's paradise of factory labor!The second half of the book; a kind of diary of cross-cultural US/Soviet cultural exchanges prior to and after the Berlin Wall; is interesting but less intellectually energizing. Still; there is a great deal of wit in Ms. Buck-Morss's observation that Western Marxist critics such as Frederick Jameson (who attended some of the same seminars with Soviet intellectuals that Buck-Morss did) seem less willing to give up on the socialist dreamscape than their Soviet counterparts.A great companion read is Michael Hardt's and Antonio Negri's "Empire" which really has an interesting take on the near simultaneous end of Fordism and the disciplinary state in both the U.S. and Soviet Union. They suggest it was the "multitude" or proletariat in both nations who rebelled against the industrial factory/modern project and destabilized both; an argument which runs counter to the usual top-down explanations for the rise of postmodern economics.Interesting how we're told these days that the Soviets; now suffering in the hot bath of capitalism; are nostalgic for the certainty of the Daddy Stalin years. Perhaps their nostalgia is not so different than Baby Boomer Americans' nostalgia for the lost innocence of the early 50s/60s; the Golden Age of American economic hegemony; before the New Deal project finally collapsed. Now that the veil has dropped it seems we had a lot more in common with "them"(us) than we ever thought we did. And still do!14 of 24 people found the following review helpful. The Betrayal of HistoryBy Sam Vaknin'Dreamworld and Catastrophe' is a cry of anguish disguised as the interdisciplinary analyses of a (neo-)Marxist scholar. It is a fragmentary and tortured reaction to the betrayal of history; in the best of Walter Benjamin's tradition; consciously emulated in this tome by this leading authority on the Frankfurt School. It is painful to wade through the convolutions of denial; intellectualization and projection that constitute the first part ('Democracy' - the political framework). The next two sections ('History' and 'Mass Culture')are a joyride of erudition and an intellectual tour de force. The last part - a dry chronicle of the comings and goings of the author's milieu amidst the disintegration of the USSR and the emergence of Russia - is anti-climactic. The opus in its entirety does not fuflil the blurb's somewhat hubristic promise: 'This book offers a revaluation of the twentieth century'. Sam Vaknin; author of 'After the Rain - How the West Lost the East'9 of 25 people found the following review helpful. Where's the Beast?By Jack R. CurtisHaving been raised in the ideological wasteland of 20th century America; I found this book an interesting read. It could be seen as a vindication of Chomskii's idea that the Cold War was a fake; in which the 2 sides's respective leaders colluded to pick the pockets of their respective peoples in order to finance the buildup of huge military machines which could be used to suck the blood of the 3rd world. My main disappointment; aside from ocassional annoying forays into psuedo-intellectual gibberish (especially the Soviet "nomenklatura" variety;); was the author's failure to inquire into the cause of the socialistic failure; apparenty assuming the fact that the leaders of neither side actually had any interest in the welfare of their people was sufficient explanation. It seems more likely to me that the collapse of social welfare is an inevitable result of the global population-explosion (i.e. as the population increases the competition for Earth's resources intensifies grows increasingly vicious; things are bound to deteriorate). Considering that the Wise Men of yore warned us of this problem long ago (i.e. population-explosion becoming the "Beast of Armagedon" threatening to drag us to our doom with it's 4 Horsemen of Famine; Plague; War; Avarice when we had finished the job of replenishing the Earth); it's hard to understand why the global intelligensia don't get it. Perhaps the "dumbing-down of America" has taken it's toll on the rest of the world; as well.
