I recently finished Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche by James Miller. The book is a collection of short intellectual biographies of twelve philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Diogenes the Cynic, Aristotle, Seneca, Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Friedrich Nietzsche). Miller also describes the historical, cultural, and political contexts of his subjects. It was very interesting.
I have recently begun reading two books: War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges, a foreign war correspondent for The New York Times at the time the book was written (2002); and, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible by Ellen F. Davis, Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School.
The Hedges book was discussed at some length by Stanley Hauerwas in the book I mentioned in an earlier post, War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity. I found a copy of the Davis book in the library of my college adviser when I was doing some work for him. I ordered a copy when I got home.
Tim Reynolds
Nashville, Tennessee