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juushika(Being sick has given me plenty of time to wander throughout LJ-land, which functions in 30-second bursts that are just short enough to hold my illness-stunted attention. One small part of LJ-land is the reappearance of a love of literature; more specifically, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50bookchallenge and 15000pages, which challenge people to read 50 books or 15000 pages per year, respectively. My mum is doing something similar: she has plans to read a book a week this year. While I do not plan to join either community, finding them has been a reminder that I love books and should be reading even more than I do. Between school and hopeful leisure reading, I should easily make both minimum requirements. In short, expect to see many of these in the upcoming months.)
Title: Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: A History of Church and State
Author: Edwin S. Gaustad
Published: Oxford University Press, New York: 2003
Pages: 143
Total pages: 143
Text number: 1
Read for: Religious Intolerance in Contemporary United States course
In brief: Up-to-date and very thorough, but the writing style is below college grade level and too relaxed. A good introductory text and a brief read.
Proclaim Liberty Is a middle-of-the-road introduction to religion in America or, more specifically, the relationship between religion and government in America. The text has been revised to cover all relevant court cases and public events up through 2003. Excerpts from legal and/or religious documents are included at the end of each chapter, which gives a cursory but in the very least existent glance into the actual words behind the issues. Finally, Gaustad divides his text very neatly into broad topics (e.g. the establishment clause: private schools) and then into subtopics (e.g. state funds to buy classroom texts) and finally into individual supreme court cases, which makes for easy reading and allows the text to be used for reference.
That being said, Gaustad uses an informal, fairly unintelligent writing style that decreases the book's value as a reference text. He introduces court cases as occurring "a dozen years later" (&tc.) and never offically states the text of the First Amendment. Those details prevent the text from being an adequately throughout refrence document, which is regretable.
In short, the book is small, paperback, and easy to transport; the content is kept simple and straightforward; and despite the informal language and omitted information, the text is a good introductory read and doesn't hurt to have on the shelves. However, for someone reading about religion outside of a classroom setting this is not the book I would recommend.
50bookchallenge and 15000pages, which challenge people to read 50 books or 15000 pages per year, respectively. My mum is doing something similar: she has plans to read a book a week this year. While I do not plan to join either community, finding them has been a reminder that I love books and should be reading even more than I do. Between school and hopeful leisure reading, I should easily make both minimum requirements. In short, expect to see many of these in the upcoming months.)Title: Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: A History of Church and State
Author: Edwin S. Gaustad
Published: Oxford University Press, New York: 2003
Pages: 143
Total pages: 143
Text number: 1
Read for: Religious Intolerance in Contemporary United States course
In brief: Up-to-date and very thorough, but the writing style is below college grade level and too relaxed. A good introductory text and a brief read.
Proclaim Liberty Is a middle-of-the-road introduction to religion in America or, more specifically, the relationship between religion and government in America. The text has been revised to cover all relevant court cases and public events up through 2003. Excerpts from legal and/or religious documents are included at the end of each chapter, which gives a cursory but in the very least existent glance into the actual words behind the issues. Finally, Gaustad divides his text very neatly into broad topics (e.g. the establishment clause: private schools) and then into subtopics (e.g. state funds to buy classroom texts) and finally into individual supreme court cases, which makes for easy reading and allows the text to be used for reference.
That being said, Gaustad uses an informal, fairly unintelligent writing style that decreases the book's value as a reference text. He introduces court cases as occurring "a dozen years later" (&tc.) and never offically states the text of the First Amendment. Those details prevent the text from being an adequately throughout refrence document, which is regretable.
In short, the book is small, paperback, and easy to transport; the content is kept simple and straightforward; and despite the informal language and omitted information, the text is a good introductory read and doesn't hurt to have on the shelves. However, for someone reading about religion outside of a classroom setting this is not the book I would recommend.
