history Archives

Dragon Seed

A Story of the Nanjing Massacre Author: Pearl S. Buck Ling Tan is in love with his land, as any 1930s Chinese farmer would be. He has a good life, a good family, a connection with his land and village that is sustaining. True, there are rumors of war, but what does it matter to ordinary people who “rules” the country? Farming and village life will go on as before. Taxes will be sent to a different entity. Nothing will change. Lao Er, Ling Tan’s second son, and his wife, Jade, know better. As members of the younger generation, both are [...]

Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought

God's Radical Laws of Freedom in the Old Testament Author: Joshua Berman In Created Equal Joshua Berman focuses on the Hebrew Bible (i.e., the Old Testament to Christians) and its revolutionary sociological and political precepts. In God’s ancient covenant with Israel, He broke from the prevailing king worship and tiered social structure (think “class”) of the day, using His laws and their implementation to create a society where everyone was equal. Of course, this one sentence doesn’t get to the complexity behind how this equal society was created and just how vastly different it was from all the other social structures [...]