I couldn’t get into this book, at all. Not even a little. If I was to make a list of the best one thousand books I’ve ever read, this one wouldn’t be on the list. In fact, if I was to make a list of the worst two books I’ve ever read, this book would take second only to My Life by Bill Clinton. The best part of the book was when Okonkwo finally did himself in. This is because I knew that the book was finally coming to an end, and that the mental torture would soon be over. The most difficult part of reading this book had to be staying awake while reading it. Seriously though, I could drink several glasses of coffee, swallow a couple bags of sugar, then start reading this book. I’d be out in minutes. Because of this… “Minor” setback, the book took quite a while to read, and I had to do most of my reading in very uncomfortable places.
In a couple of years, some kid is going to bring this book up to me, and be like “hey mister, what one thing do you remember most about this book, and how did it change the plot?” and I’m going to respond with something like: That book, eh? Yeah, I still remember good ol’ Okonkwo killing himself. Obviously it brought the book to an end, which is why I remember it most.
The title of the book could indicate that the authors writing skills are falling apart, however I think he would like us to believe that the real meaning behind the title, a well thought out one, I might add, is just that. Things fall apart. Ways of life fall apart, people fall apart, the Igbo fall apart. Nothing can stand forever, and time is the hardest test anything, and everything, will ever face. Time rips things apart.
I’m sure many ‘types’ of readers will enjoy this book, ones that don’t fall asleep easily and ones that are interested in the ways of life of those who don’t have a lot of technology. A reader that is, for the most part, the exact opposite of me.
I always wondered why they needed to take a young virgin, and a young male, in compensation for the death of this guys wife. What’s the young male for? I also wondered why he got in so much trouble for shooting at his wife, he didn’t actually hit her, what’s the big deal? And I thought Okownkwo’s father was a pretty cool guy. I wonder why Okownkwo couldn’t be the same.
Sheep always follow the herd. Staying with the pack means protection; whereas, straying from the pack opens up the potential of being attacked and ultimately ending up in the bowels of a hungry wolf or other carnivore. Men too, always follow the herd. Being too different - dissenting from the norm - often lands men in trouble. Being marked as weird is the lowest of possible punishments that can range from being disassociated to being mercilessly and brutally killed. Straying from the herd is like leaving the wagon circle: it leaves you completely open to the barrage attacks that almost always ensues.
Ken Kesey makes his viewpoint on the issue of sheep quite evident throughout the text of his famed novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. According to the Kingwood College Library “Challenging symbols of conformity” is one of the predominate central themes of the novel (Goodwin). The predominance of this theme is visible in both the characters themselves and the situations the characters are put in.
The whole idea of the Asylum is a prime example of the fact that straying from the herd gets the unknowing wanderer tagged and excommunicated. Those weirdoes and freaks who decide to be different and step out of line get rounded up and tossed into a place that teaches them to stay part of the herd and to never stand out. The teaching is done by an evil natured woman who feels that she’s doing the right thing for the patients: teaching them to conform. Her method is, in essence, targeting a single patient, forcing him out of the herd, then having the rest of the herd pick on the targeted ‘crazy’. This teaches the lesson that being the target, the one outside the group, is the bad spot to be. It also teaches that one is safe while part of the big group, because you don’t get picked on when you’re not different from the others.
McMurphy goes through several stages while in the mental institute, and all of them cause a change in how sheepish he is. When he first becomes a patient in the hospital, his attitude is that he just needs to get the best of the head nurse. His efforts cause him to stray from the herd a little, which in turn amplifies the nurse’s interest in him and brings on a barrage of counter-attacks. Once McMurphy is told that he won‘t be able to leave unless the Nurse approves, he changes his chain of thought. He decides that the quickest way out of there is to just fit in, to just follow the herd and to be unnoticed. This works for a while, he manages to trick the nurse into being less interested in him while he’s just part of the group. Towards the end of the novel, McMurphy starts getting a soft spot for the other patients, and he used what he learned during the previous stages to do the best he can do for his new-found-friends. He combines being daring with being part of the group by convincing the group to do things with him, and by doing so he successfully holds the nurse off for quite some time. When he wants to watch TV; for example, he doesn’t sit down in front of the off TV by himself, he gets the patients to do it with him effectively hiding in the herd from the nurse.
Ken Kesey obviously believes that like sheep, most men just follow the herd. He also believes that men get punished for thinking outside of the norm, and he is blatantly opposed to this type of society model. Kesey would definitely agree with the quote “Most men are sheep,” and it wouldn’t be surprising if Kesey had read that quote multiple times while writing One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Works Cited
"FREE Study Guide-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey." PinkMonkey. 20 Apr. 2007 .
Goodwin, Susan, and Peggy Whitely. "Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Kingswood College Library. 01 July 2006. Kingswood College Library. 22 Apr. 2007 .
Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. New York: Signet, 1963.
"SparkNotes: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." SparkNotes. 24 Apr. 2007 .
Mankind is foolish. Mankind is ignorant. Most importantly: mankind is forgetful and unlearning. Carl Sandburg shows this in his poem “Grass.” Through the personification of nature, Sandburg suggests that mankind is incapable of learning from mistakes they make, and thus are doomed to repeat the tragic events of history. Sandburg’s use of characterization, tone and chronological events paints a gloomy picture for the future of mankind.
The most important element in defining this theme is Sandburg’s strong use of characterization. He chooses the grass to narrate the poem in first person, and through word choice and repetition, the reader gains a respect for nature. Nature’s unemotional observation of the wars of man forces this respect. Even when faced with great tragedies like Austerlitz and Waterloo the grass only says “Shovel them under and let me work— / I am the grass; I cover all.” (Sandburg, Lines 2-3) By contrast, Sandburg portrays mankind to be ignorant of their own mistakes by saying “Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” (7-9) The juxtaposition of the all knowing, all covering grass and the forgetful humans really makes it clear that the reader is meant to sympathize with nature’s plight.
Sandburg chooses to have nature take a very sarcastic and borderline condescending tone while narrating this poem. It seems that nature is becoming frustrated that men are unable to learn from the mistakes that they’ve made and instead just allow the grass to cover up the mistakes: band-aid after band-aid. Just picture the janitor who day after day needs to pick up all of the trash surrounding the trash can, that didn’t make it in the can even though it wasn’t full. “Oh sure, don’t put it in the can. I mean, why bother when there’s a janitor anyway, right?” Grass’s opinion on mankind is very similar. “So, even after all of the dead at Austerlitz and Waterloo, that I had to clean up after, you’re going to forget that and do it again at Gettysburg, and again at Ypres, and again at Verdun.” After all—“I am the grass. / Let me work.” (Sandburg 10-11)
The battles in this poem are listed in chronological order. This is very important. The poem wouldn’t have lost any of its impact if the battles weren’t listed chronologically; however, listing them chronologically brings the theme all together. This poem was written in 1918, just two years after the battle of Verdun. This poem is Sandburg’s way of saying to the world “have you already forgotten Austerlitz? Have you already forgotten Waterloo? Why are we doing this again, so soon?” the line “Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” (7-9) is Sandburg’s way of calling out the rest of mankind. Asking how could you be so ignorant to history? He’s saying: if we let ourselves forget the battles of times past, we’re doomed to repeat them. When is the next Verdun?
The combination of characterization, tone, and historical events in this poem are expertly wrapped up into a theme that presents mankind with nature’s (and Sandburg’s) frustration with the folly of mankind. If humans continue to ignore history, continue to forget previous conflicts, continue to refuse to learn from their mistakes, then they are to be doomed to continuously make the same mistakes, which will result in many unnecessary deaths.
There are many controversial issues in modern politics, but abortion is definitely one of the most embattled topics across the nation. Merriam-Webster defines abortion as “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus: as a: spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation” but on the political scale, it means much more. It is a battle fought between women who wish to control their own bodies and religious zealots who view religious text as law. The current abortion situation in the United States is evidence that this verbal battle has no clear end in sight.
The proverbial fist fight began in the 1800’s, when the first state (Massachusetts) decided to outlaw the practice of abortion. During colonial times, there really wasn’t much of a problem with abortions. The real fighting over the issue; however, began with one woman: Norma Leah McCorvey, better known as Jane Roe, from the famous Supreme Court case: Roe v. Wade. Up until this case, abortions were only legal in situations where continuing with the pregnancy would be hazardous to the health of the mother. Of course, Roe won the case. The opinion of the court (7-2) stated that
Right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113)
and ever since, the battles have been fought on the steps of state capitols across the nation.
Roe v. Wade prevents states from making abortion illegal—it doesn’t prevent them from making it extremely difficult to get one. Oh, and they can make it extremely difficult. A prime example of the potential difficulty of getting an abortion is South Dakota. There is only one abortion clinic in the entire state, the doctor isn’t a native of the state (he travels from neighboring Minnesota), and the clinic can be as far as four hundred miles! New York is probably the easiest state to get an abortion—there’s a clinic in nearly every community, and there are next-to-no restrictions. Most states are somewhere between these two extremes.
The opinion on abortion is vastly different in every state, and this is clearly visible when you look at the numbers from the Guttmacher Institute. This is easily measured by the number of clinics, and the percentage of women who have access to these clinics. Hawaii and Idaho have roughly the same population, but Hawaii has seven times more abortion clinics. In states like California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York, 90% of women have an abortion clinic in their county—this is only true for 25% of women in other states (Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming).
The most interesting part is that all of these contrasts can exist with Roe v. Wade in effect! What could happen if the decision in that case were overturned? The state-to-state differences would definitely expand greatly. There are some states that have laws called trigger laws, that once the “trigger” condition is met, the law goes into effect. Six states have trigger laws that’ll make abortion illegal if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the very second that it is. More states have other trigger laws that will ensure that abortion remains legal if Roe v. Wade becomes null. Also, legal experts are still out on if pre-Roe v. Wade abortion bans would become law again. Regardless of if states have trigger laws, the overturn of Roe v. Wade would cause a political upheaval across the country. Lobbyists will be out in full force, for both sides. Most experts agree that the decisions made in most states will be dependent on the party that controls congress and the governorship—and that the federal government would likely sit on the sidelines, and let the local governments do the dirty work.
Roe v. Wade hasn’t prevented states from passing restrictions on abortions. Since the decision in 1973, state lawmakers have passed hundreds of laws intended to prevent abortions. This is true in 49 of the fifty states—Vermont being the lone wolf. These laws have many different ways of trying to stop abortions in any way possible: everything from regulating costs and ability to receive Medicaid for the procedure, to requiring the abortionist to inform the parents of any minor getting an abortion, to regulating the size of the doors in a clinic, to requiring doctors to try to talk the woman out of it. Sometimes doctors are required to inform the mother that her fetus can feel pain, sometimes they must offer the mother painkillers for the fetus, and sometimes the doctors are required to show the mother a sonogram picture of the baby before she’s allowed to have the abortion.
One of the most effective laws that states use to prevent abortions is the parental consent and notification law. These laws prevent minors (one of the largest group of people who want to get abortions) from getting them without at least the notification, and sometimes without the consent of the parents. In some states, girls can bypass this by getting a judicial bypass. These laws have been brought before the Supreme Court, and in 2006, the court sided with the laws. A majority of the states that have these laws require the parents to be informed 48 hours before the procedure is done, but some require one or both parents to consent to the procedure. In 2004, Florida voters voted in a similar law. Some states, specifically Alaska, California, Idaho, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New Mexico passed these laws as well, only to have them struck down in their state courts for violating privacy or equal-protection. Overall, there are twenty-two states that have these laws, and only North Dakota and Mississippi require the approval of both parents.
Another effective law that is designed to prevent abortions is categorized as “Consolation, including fetal pain and ultrasound.” There are 28 states that require doctors to council mothers on alternatives to abortion, such as adoption, and inform them of the potential dangers of abortion. Some require doctors to inform patients of potential mental effects of having an abortion, some require doctors to explain that the fetus can feel pain, some require doctors to tell the patient that having an abortion can cause in increased risk for breast cancer, and even more require doctors to give sonograms to patients before an abortion.
There are also 24 states that have forced waiting periods before you can get an abortion—most of the 24 states require a full day’s wait. Categorized along with the actual waiting period are other cost-increasing factors, and as cost goes up, so does availability. There are 39 states that require the abortion to be performed by a licensed doctor, 20 that require the procedure to be done in a hospital, and some more that require more than one doctor. Cha-Ching!
The anti-abortion lobby frequently uses costs as a way to keep abortions away from the people who want them. Not only do they raise the costs, but they also attempt to prevent public funding for abortions. Known as the Hyde Amendment, federal funding for abortions is limited to cases that involve rape and cases that put a woman’s health at risk. To further that, only 13 states pay for almost all abortions. That isn’t all on the finical front: five states actually outlaw the ability of private health care to pay for abortions, unless the health of the mother is at risk. It doesn’t end there, however. In a whopping forty-six states, doctors have the right to refuse to give a patient an abortion. Recently, there have been laws that prevent certain types of abortion: specifically partial birth abortions. These laws don’t even allow for health exception.
The termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus: as a: spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation. If only it were actually that simple. No, no. This is much larger than a simple termination of pregnancy. This is where the sanctity of life meets the rights of women in an all out battle. There’s no clear end in sight, and who’s to say which side will come out victorious? With all of the differences around the country, and lacking a clear central authority on the topic, the battles will likely continue for a long, long time. One side will continue to do everything in its power to limit abortions, be it through costs, restrictions, waiting periods, parental approval, counseling, the limiting of federal funding, telling the mothers that the fetus can feel pain. It’s going to be a bumpy road for either side on its path to glory. Who will come out on top? Only time will tell.
Works Cited
"Abortion - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary." Dictionary and Thesaurus - Merriam-Webster Online. Web. 02 Nov. 2009. .
"FindLaw | Cases and Codes." FindLaw: Cases and Codes. Web. 02 Nov. 2009. .
I picked other peoples flowers, because I was a jerk.
Then I saw you, with the stilts and the games,
You came over to me with some blue plums.
And life continued as normal, as it always does.
Just two of us, insignificant, and uncaring.
It wasn’t much later, we married under My Lord.
I was so bashful; never laughed.
I keep my head low, or towards the wall.
I never respond when you call to me.
By the next year, I was happy
I wanted to be part of you
Always, and forever, never ending
Why should I climb any higher?
A year later, you left.
You left for Ku-to-yen, to close to the whirlpool.
You’ve been gone for so long,
That even the monkeys cry.
It’s like you knew before you left.
The gate is s o different now, new moss has grown.
It’s too thick to clear!
Its autumn now, many leaves fall.
Butterflies everywhere and they’re yellow, because it’s August.
Just past the West garden;
Its painful to grow older.
If you ever come back,
I hope you’ll let me know before hand,
Because I will come for you
However far it may be.
As a writing exercise, it can be fun to rewrite poems that you feel deeply about. Personally, I hate "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" so here I am destroying it, while maintaining the general story.
In his poem, “The love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” T.S. Eliot opens with the line “Let us go then, you and I.” The meaning of this line dictates the meaning of the entire poem. It wasn’t until the third of fourth rereading of this poem that the true meaning of the line became clear. The poem is representative of an internal debate; the speaker in the poem acts as the ‘I,’ while also acting as the ‘you.’ It may sound confusing, but the device really allows for a great inner look into the psyche of the speaker.
Considering that both the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ represent the same person, they must represent different parts of Alfred’s psyche. Since ‘I’ is obviously the speaking psyche, it’s logical to conclude that ‘I’ is his inner self. Who he wants to be. That fact delegates the ‘you’ to who he really is on the outside. The evidence of this is really apparent in lines 41 and 44. The parentheses are indicative of the ‘you’ back talking the ‘I.’ The inner self is telling the body to go be outgoing, to go and do stuff, to get the chick, while the body debates this command, saying “(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”). The perspective of the ‘I’ changes as time passes in the poem. It changes from the outgoing, adventure seeking inner self, to finally recognizing that he’s too old. Line 125 is a perfect example. Eliot writes: “I do not think that they will sing to me,” not long after he had written “I grow old … I grow old …” This is probably because his outer body was actually correct, and his brain just had never caught up to his age.
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an excellent back and forth debate between one aging man and his own psyche. T.S. Eliot masterfully weaves a tail to allow the reader to peer easily into this debate and gain an insight on what it is like to age.
In his article, “Stumbling into Crossfire: William Carlos Williams, Partisan Review, and the Left in the 1930s” Cohen examines Williams’ apparently awkward interactions with the political left. In the preface of the article, Cohen states that “William Carlos Williams had an almost uncanny knack for getting between warring factions and alienating power centers of the Left, particularly Partisan Review.” He goes on to cite three examples (two of which ended in humiliation for Williams) and explain some of the potential reasoning behind Williams’ actions.
In the second section of the article, Cohen explains exactly how Williams could be both a leftist, but at ends with the leftist movement at the same time. Williams was indeed a leftist, and his poems reflect this, but he was not a communist. He didn’t believe in communism nor did he believe that a communist revolution could take place in America. Also, it wasn’t until 1934 that Williams even believed that poetry could be political. Prior to this, he refused to write political poetry. Cohen quotes Williams as writing “[P]oetry is related to poetry, not to social statutes” in selected letters to Kay Boyle. It’s beginning to become abundantly clear how Williams can both agree and be at ends with the leftist movement in the early 1930s.
Cohen continues his article by explaining how as time passes, Williams does indeed become increasingly political with his poetry. He begins to write more about the working man, about servants, and about other hot-button issues among leftist circles. Then in 1936 Williams become at ends with popular leftism once again, by answering a questionnaire with an answer that rejects communism in America. He even writes “It is this same democracy of feeling which will defeat Marxism in America and all other attempts at regimentation of thought and action.” (QTD in Cohen 147) in some other letters. The printing of his disapproval of communism caused him much embarrassment.
By use of these examples, and a few others (most notably another showdown with the same group that published his anticommunism bit, Partisan Review), Cohen claims that the political battlefield leaves Williams “simply out of his depth in dealing with the labyrinthine politics of the Left.” (Cohen 153) but that argument isn’t entirely convincing. While Cohen does provide ample evidence to this claim, he neglects the possibility that Cohen was simply on the foreground attempting to mold the left to a communist free chain of thought, and thus offers no evidence of counter possibilities.
The First Emperor : Selections From the Historical Records. By Sima Quin with introduction by
Dawson and preface by Brashier (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)
The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records was written by multiple authors, none of whom are introduced. Not only are they not introduced, but their first names are not given, so it’s impossible to look them up. At first, this was cause for worry for me. Why would the authors not want their names known? Once I got into the book however, I realized it was likely just an oversight when producing an e-version of the book, as the book was rather well written. It’s unfortunate that I can’t figure out who the authors are, as I’d be interested in reading some of their other works, actually. The exception to this was Sima Quin, who was a renowned scribe in the Qin Empire.
The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records covers an excellent selection of Chinese (or really, pre-Chinese history I suppose). It begins with the birth of the first emperor. Covers his rise to power, covers some assassination attempts, the building of the great wall, and then includes a bunch of other supporting information. The book includes, for example, both the annuals of the Qin Empire, as well as thier Treatises. It also includes some other biographies of important players: the chief minister and two important rebels that are credited with bringing down the Qin Empire (Xiang Yu, and Chen Sheng). The Annuals talk a lot about the day to day operations of the Qin Empire, and through that it becomes possible to gain in insight into the daily lives of the government as well as what the government considers important.
I opted to read this book after watching the video on the First Emperor in class. I found it to be rather interesting and entertaining, and also finding a good book to read on serfdom is rather difficult, so I decided to read about China instead. After reading this, I’m likely to change my topic to something related to China, as this was a rather good and interesting read. To be entirely honest, I probably would have enjoyed a watered down version a little bit better. Some of the phrasing in this book was above my level just a tad, and I found myself using not only their supplied references but also a dictionary and Google far more frequently than I would have liked. I can’t really blame the book, because it is selections from Historical Records. The author simply picked which excerpts to include in the book, as well as wrote the preface and some supporting information throughout. The supporting information, while completely required to fully understand what exactly you’re about to read (as every chapter begins with some supporting information) seems a bit short, and I would have benefitted from having more information written in modern times available in the book. However, even considering that fact, being able to read some of the translated time-period writing gives a completely different insight into their time-period and this is invaluable. Some of the other references were also lackluster. The Author fails to explain what exactly Historical Records are, even though he references them throughout. The reader is left to assume that it isn’t explained in an attempt to not insult our intelligence, so I’m inclined to believe that the majority of the text is in fact translated from records of the actual Qin Empire. Also, another minor reference complaint is that the map at the beginning of the book is horrible. If I hadn’t had background knowledge on the topic, the map would have been entirely useless, and even with the background knowledge that I did have, the map was still nearly worthless.
Overall, I must say that The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records was a good read. It was not only very informative from what the modern author had to say, but also from a ‘getting inside the minds of the people of the time period’ perspective this read is invaluable. At one point, I wish I could find the page now, they make reference to a law that is being changed and state something to the extent of “And that’s how it will be for this generation, next generation, down to the ten thousandth generation” (Paraphrased from Qian) and just reading that line alone gave such an interesting insight into their minds. These people believed that they would exist forever, and it kind of puts all of their other actions into perspective.
Emergence of Christianity. By Cynthia White. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007)
Cynthia White is the director and professor of the basic Latin program at the University of Arizona. She not only holds a Ph. D, but is also a prolific author. She has published at least twelve books; more than a few are related to the classical period. She is an expert on Roman history, as well as religious history, and in Emergence of Christianity she combines her difference areas of expertise to paint a clear picture on just how the religion emerged and expanded throughout the Roman Empire.
Emergence of Christianity focuses on explaining the histories of the Romans as well as the Jews, and how these histories combine to form one of the major religions of not only the time, but also of today. In the books own preface, the author implies that Christianity not only begins in Rome, but also takes it over by the time Christianity was given official sanction “in 391 C.E., Rome was no longer the seat of the ancient imperial empire but the primate see of a new Christian Empire” (White, xv). This is the point that the book argues throughout. White provides proof of this concept throughout the book, and details the struggle against and finally the acceptance of Christianity at all points in Roman history prior to its total acceptance.
My favorite part of this book is easily the many excellent references provided at the very beginning. It includes a chronological events section, which lists all of the major events that take place by year, as well as a list of not only the Roman emperors, but also the rulers of Judah. These references were very useful throughout reading the book, and I found myself revisiting them as I progressed through the timeline of the story. The book then begins with an excellent historical overview of the religious practices of the Roman Empire, followed up by what it calls a “Short History of the Jews” (White, 6). The histories provided in the beginning of the book set up the pretenses that need to be understood to be able to completely appreciate exactly how Christianity was able to take hold. Without this knowledge, I feel that I would have been asking why more often than not throughout the rest of the book. Still, even with all of these excellent references, some of the historical events can still be confusing. White provides the reader with even more information, by including photos of importance, biographies of the important people, and also early Christian documents. My only gripe is that all of the photos are left in the back of the book, rather than intertwined with the text, so I found myself scrolling to the end of the E-book to see the relevant photographs. The formatting of the book made it an easy read, which I enjoyed. The book is divided into clearly titled chapters, and the chapters are divided up into sections, which are then divided even further into subsections. I further enjoyed the way that the chapters are divided. Rather than just a typical chronological division, White instead divides the chapters by group. For example, chapter two is titled: “Jews and Christians: The Dynasty of Herod the Great” (White, 21) whereas chapter three is titled: “Romans and Christians: Constantine's Christian Monotheism” (White, 43). These chapters make not only finding what you’re looking for simple, but keep all the information around other relevant information. Finally, the book is included with a very well done index section. Regardless of what I was looking for, I could count on the index to have it properly, well, indexed. Overall, the book was masterfully compiled. The different chapters are basically stand-alone essays, and White even calls them as such on page 99 when she says “In these five essays we have traced the foundation and spread of Christianity” but the conclusion coupled with the pretext of historical knowledge given prior to chapter one, ties them all together perfectly.
Emergence of Christianity is not only an entertaining read, but is also a very informative one. Its complete explanation of exactly how Christianity came into power will be very helpful for when I write my final paper. I will probably need to find at least one more source, in order to understand some of the long term effects that the religion had on the empire itself, but then again the Christian influence remains huge to this day, and is likely the topic of many debates.
