Ocean State Libraries

In this insightful book, Thomas Cahill, internationally-acclaimed historian and author of the runaway bestseller How the Irish Saved Civilization (RB# 94747), reveals the changes in thinking that made Western civilization possible. A New York Times best-seller, The Gifts of the Jews is his accessible portrait of an ancient society and their vision that would later inspire the concept of individual worth. Until the third millennium, it was a widely-held...

A series of connected lectures delivered by eminent scholars. Each professor addresses an area of personal expertise and relates it to the larger story of the links between the works and the figures discussed. The lectures examine a series of major works that have shaped the ongoing development of western thought, touching upon history, philosophy, literature, art, religion, politics, science, and technology.

Experience the evolution of all of Jewish life during the 10 critical centuries from its rabbinic foundations in late antiquity until the dawn of modernity in the 17th century. During this time, Judaism was forever affected by its encounters with the surrounding social, economic, political, and intellectual environments of both medieval Islam and Christendom. As a result of those encounters, new pathways of philosophical inquiry and religious spirituality

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Examines the Biblical narratives in their historical, social, archaeological, and mythological contexts and provides a section with a book-by-book summary of the Bible.