Three new books will add interesting information to any humanist conversation. The first two are fast reads; the details in the third one will require more time and concentration.

Papal Sin by Garry Wills summarizes the blatant historical abuses of power by Catholic popes, nepotism, murders, and wars of conquest but concentrates on the historical distortions and evasions of the modern papacy. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author is an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University.

The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong details how and why the fundamentalists of Christianity, Judaism and Islam came into existence and what they yearn to accomplish. She examines the way these movements arose through the common fear of modernity, the dominance of secular values around the world. Fundamentalists have no tolerance for democracy, pluralism, free speech or the separation of church and state. The author took her degree at Oxford and is one of the foremost commentators on religious affairs in both Britain and the United States.

From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun details the 500 years of western cultural life since 1500, from the Renaissance and Reformation through the Enlightenment to the present. The hours you spend reading this book will reward you with a more clear understanding of the great division between Modernity and Post-Modernism. The 93-year old author was Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia, Dean of Faculties and Provost and twice president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

--Flo Wineriter