Tag Catholicism

The Meaning of Faith and Reason

Follow @yaleRELIbooks See all 20% off titles in our YUP Backlist History promotion!   It’s good practice, if you are going to argue with something, to aim at the best version of that thing you are arguing with. In Reason, Faith, and Revolution, Terry Eagleton argues that opponents of religion

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Editor Jennifer Banks on the Boundaries of Religion

Follow @yaleRELIbooks Jennifer Banks— I had been acquiring religion books for Yale University Press for five years or so when my grandmother’s passing brought me back to the Catholic Church I’d attended as a child. I sat in the back row at her funeral, with my two-year-old daughter and four-month-old

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Protestantism in European History: The Huguenots

In Francois Dubois’ painting of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572, we see one of the worst acts of violence in the French Wars of Religion. Catholics attack the Huguenots, French Calvinist Protestants, in a number of horrific ways, bludgeoning some to death and decapitating others. According to modern

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Celebrating St. Francis of Assisi through the Art of Biography

Today, October 4, is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the Catholic Church’s patron saint of animals and the environment. On this special day, many people celebrate by taking their pets to churches for a special blessing ceremony. Here at Yale Press, we’re marking the occasion a little

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Reshaping the Mold: Adapting Religion to Latin America

Ferdinand and Isabella, Catholic monarchs of Spain, are often remembered by their association with the famous sea voyage in history: Christopher Columbus’ journey to the Americas in 1492. In New Worlds: A Religious History of Latin America, John Lynch explores the influence of the Spanish monarchy, and later the Pope, on

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Lest We Forget: How to Declare Our Beliefs

Sarah Underwood— Recent events have reminded us how difficult it was in the past, and often still is today, for people to speak openly about their ideas. From the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Arab Spring, public declaration of belief and protest continue to appear regularly in headlines. It

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Eminent Biography: Donald Weinstein on Savonarola

What does it mean to be a prophet? In his new biography Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet, Donald Weinstein gives us one answer to this question, tracing the story of religious visionary Girolamo Savonarola from his early loss of faith in society to his later attempts

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Lest We Forget: What Converting Environs Means for Converting Beliefs

Sarah Underwood— ABC’s series Pan Am, which premiered last fall, follows several beautiful airline stewardesses from the 1960s whose careers are filled with enough to drama to crash a plane. The stewardesses’ lives, which have repeatedly been called “glamorous” by reviewers, create a good platform for addressing contemporary social issues.

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Craig Harline on Telling Conversions

Since the publication of Conversions earlier this fall, author Craig Harline has been busy writing op-eds for the Huffington Post, History News Network, The Daily, and Berfrois, all the while being profiled by Publishers Weekly, who also named the book a Top Ten Religion Book of 2011. The book dually

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Eminent Biography: John Edwards on Mary I

On November 17, 1558, Queen Mary I of England died in the midst of her restoration of Catholicism. The glorious reign of her succeeding half-sister Elizabeth and the permanent installation of Protestantism as the religion of the Church of England has left this first reigning English queen with a certain

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