A stunning and brilliant book, this is THE essential work on minimalism.

This book is already becoming the standard work on the etiology of the movement. Meyer combines a complete mastery of the period's theoretical issues with a sleuth's approach to its historical narrative. Essential.

This history of minimalist theory and thought is based on the contention that the question of what constitutes minimalism has remained unresolved since the 1960s. Chapters trace the movement, examine its major qualities, and considers the presence of minimalism as a debate or argument developed in response to works of others.

It's ever so true. Mr. Ruthven who is a professor at Regent University has written a scholarly response to the cessationist that demands to be read. Even if one does not believe that the Charismata is for the present day church of Christ, one must still accord the respect due to this polemic.

For too long our theologians have been influenced by the cessationism of John Calvin and Benjamin B. Warfield. Though dead, these two have had an influence upon the majority of the church. Due to the scholarly presentation of anti-cessationist literature, Christians have very quickly embraced this anti-scriptural viewpoint. The cessationist viewpoint has effected other areas of the Christian's devotional life such as confidence that God will interven in answer to prayer, the need for guidance, etc.

Ruthven has done an excellent job of refuting the cessationist viewpoint from the level of a scholar. Yet, Ruthven does not refute this error through scholarship alone but deals with the most important aspect of proving the truth that the Charismata is available today - the Scriptures themselves.

I highly recommend this important work. Get it today if you can find it.

In this book, Ruthven systematically and carefully refutes a sacred cow of American protestantism that should have been put out to pasture a long time ago - namely the B.B. Warfield philosophy. Warfield's ideas have seemingly been uncritically accepted by many theologians over the years. Few, if any, have taken the time to apply his own standards to his theological system to find out if it stands. Ruthven does the job masterfully in this book and shows not only the errors of the classic Warfield/cessationist view from a Biblical standpoint, but also rightfully points out that Warfield appealed to history (and therefore experience) in an attempt to support his position. This is significant in light of the fact that so many who accept this Princeton theologian's arguements claim that they "go by the Bible alone, never by experience."

Ruthven has presented an outstanding response to the argument set forth in B.B. Warfield's early 20th century classic "Counterfeit Miracles."

Thiose interested in the cessationist debate would do well to read Warfield's book along with Ruthven's more than competent response.

I know that this is ...[a] review of a work that has been out there (in translation) for many years... this is quite the best investigation of an intellectual/historical subject that I've ever seen.
... Took a chance, struck gold. Now look, I have degrees in History, have read 100's of books on that subject alone. Nothing like it has passed my old and weak eyes like this 'thing' of Gerbi's. Man's a genius. Delved into a subject long just not even imagined, drug it up, made it understandable, holy cow! Who knew! Surely not the multi Ph.D. friend who reacted much the same, "Buffon!, he said, I didn't know that". The Dispute of (or Argument about), the MEANING of New World is something (like Beard) that those interested in history simply cannot avoid, except at their peril.

This masterful work is a hallmark of scholarly effort and provides the undercurrent of American-European relations since discovery. Ever wonder why Jefferson digresses into a 15 page argument about the size of NA Elk in Notes on Virginia or who actually said "lazy, shiftless and incapable of civilization" and to whom they were referring or why Lewis' Dodsworth has an extended in-character argument about natural American abilities? This and much, much more await discovery here! Accept no more the presumed superiority of European culture -- not after you understand the history of the debate.

In the coming century, this book will be known as ground breaking. In our culture, architects do not have the ability to look forward and see changing paradigms. This book successfuly outlines an emerging design paradigm for the 20th century. Unfortnately it dwells too much in style and not enough in substance when examples are used. The issue of green architecture and ecology which i belive are the heart of architecture's relationship to complexity theory are given very short chapters. Instead, Jencks focuses on stylistic expressions of chaos from the likes of Gehry and Eisenmann. Overall though, this is a book that every young, impressionable architect should read right away!

Excellent discourse. This book discusses some of the rudiments of the history of inequality and how its self supporting and ever existing in human nature. I recommend this book for those readers who either want to increase their knowledge on Jean-Jacques Rousseau or historical development of inequality

For those who want to further their command over Rousseau's life- I suggest them to read 'Confessions' by Rousseau.

As a student in architecture I would recommend this book to any person involved in any way of design. Not only buildings, because architecture also includes every aspect of the designing of space. This can therefore include industrial design, automotive design, etc. The book dicusses the interaction between people and spaces(buildings) using the human senses as medium - the way we see, feel, hear and experience a space. It is a fresh and captivating book and it is a real pitty that it is out of print.

It's always assumed that there were no observant Jews in America prior to the great Eastern European migration that began in the 1880's. Rabbi I. Harold Sharfman, the author of "Jews on the Frontier" and the founder of the "Half-Moon K" Kashrut Organization, has gathered a sampler of sermons, journals and synagogue records to show the rise of Reform and the resistance of Orthodox Judaism from 1840 to 1860. The only flaw I could find in this book is the lack of footnotes, although if citations had been included the book would be much longer than 750 pages! Nevertheless I highly recommend this to anyone who is studying the history of Judaism in America.

We need more texts like Literary Polemics. Through careful readings and informed philosophical interventions, Guerlac has uncovered some hidden genealogies and hitherto-obscured proximities between authors that have all too often been considered separately. By reading them together, Guerlac skillfully and compellingly foregrounds debates and issues that reconfigure and reorganize the grid through which we now commonly grasp theoretical work. Her close attention to detail in the texts she reads permits her to make, on the one hand, a broader historical intervention regarding the centrality of the effaced yet once famous French philosopher Henri Bergson towards an understanding of the role of "theory" since Tel Quel and, on the other hand, a theoretical intervention that proposes a "rethinking of visuality for the 21st century" (via Bergson) as an alternative to the model of "writing" (or even, of a "visuality" nonetheless premised on "textuality") that informs post-structurally inclined thinking in American academia today. Insofar Bergson is often an unacknowledged influence on so many French modernists, Guerlac does a brilliant job of detecting his spectral presence in their texts, even as she highlights the fine points of their debates with each other. Like all great books, Literary Polemics teaches us how to think and how to read. By avoiding the repetition of commonplace theoretical moves of the past decade, by combining literary readings and philosophical speculation without ever losing sight of their broader historical implications, this book is nothing short of exhilirating.

This book takes an extraordinarily unique approach to the discussion of the polemics of the "old man" Luther. Edwards proposes that many of the contemporary interpretations, of Luther's motivating psychological disposition as shaping the polemical work of the latter part of his life, from 1530 on, are incorrect. He insistently urges readers to put aside the pre-established views promulgated by Erik Erikson and his Crones- that "young man" Luther's troubled childhood had created a sort of ill-crazed, schizophrenic "old man." Edwards consistently takes a contextual, historical, and political approach to his very extensive interpretation of Luther's post 1530 polemics, minimizing Luther's mental and physical conditions.

"Luther's Last Battles" contains extensive interpretation of several of these latter polemical tracts. It is a task that few, if any, historians have undertaken. This being the case, it has allowed Edwards the freedom to promulgate his specific bent on the motivating drive of "old man" Luther.

Edwards ultimately concludes, that by approaching Luther's works through his new approach, it becomes clear that he had indeed carried strong political and theological convictions. His vulgarity and apocalyptic rhetoric were ultimately a result of the surrounding circumstances of sixteenth century society in the midst of the first Reformation.

Edwards's work deserves the highest praise. A reader ultimately gains an appreciation for the difficulty of such an analytical task. He has continually and effectively stressed the political motivation and interests in Luther's polemics. By attempting to provide a fresh outlook on the elder Luther, a task not often undertaken, Edwards has created an important new method for historians to use in evaluating polemical literature of the past. In so doing, he has demonstrated that the most complete evaluation of a person's persona and driving forces may be done only through historical contextual evaluation of primary sources. Goodbye Erik Erikson, Mark Edwards is here to stay!

_Mature Christianity in the 21st Century_ is a book with a hope. That hope is that all Christians might answer an emphatic yes to a question posed by Christopher Leighton in the prologue: can we learn to live creatively with our religious differences? Most of Norman Beck's book is a study of the beginnings of the problem as found in the New Testament. Then in a final chapter Dr Beck offers a future agenda for Christianity.