In this captivating double life, Adam Gopnik searches for the men behind the icons of emancipation and evolution. Born by cosmic coincidence on the same day in 1809 and separated by an ocean, Lincoln and Darwin coauthored our sense of history and our understanding of man’s place in the world. Here Gopnik reveals these two men as they really were: family men and social climbers, ambitious manipulators and courageous adventurers, grieving parents and brilliant scholars. Above all we see them as thinkers and writers, making and witnessing the great changes in thought that mark truly modern times.

In this captivating double life, Adam Gopnik searches for the men behind the icons of emancipation and evolution. Born by cosmic coincidence on the same day in 1809 and separated by an ocean, Lincoln and Darwin coauthored our sense of history and our understanding of man’s place in the world. Here Gopnik reveals these two men as they really were: family men and social climbers, ambitious manipulators and courageous adventurers, grieving parents and brilliant scholars. Above all we see them as thinkers and writers, making and witnessing the great changes in thought that mark truly modern times.

On February 12th, 1809, two men were born an ocean apart: Charles Darwin on an English country estate; Abraham Lincoln in a Kentucky log cabin. Their great parallel lives were to transform humanitys understanding of itself. Adam Gopnik takes the coincidence of their birth as the starting-point to explore these historical giants, showing how they informed their lives and actions based on argument from reason, in the process using language that was as revolutionary as their ideas. And, in the loss of their favoured child, they shared a private tragedy for which their philosophical views on death would prove little comfort.

Recently angels have made a remarkable comeback in the popular imagination; their real heyday, however, was the Middle Ages. From the great shrines dedicated to Michael the Archangel at Mont-St-Michel and Monte Garano to the elaborate metaphysical speculations of the great thirteenth-century scholastics, angels dominated the physical, temporal, and intellectual landscape of the medieval West. This book offers a full-scale study of angels and angelology in the Middle Ages. Seeking to discover how and why angels became so important in medieval society, David Keck considers a wide range of fascinating questions such as: Why do angels appear on baptismal fonts? How and why did angels become normative for certain members of the church? How did they become a required course of study? Did popular beliefs about angels diverge from the angelologies of the theologians? Why did some heretics claim to derive their authority from heavenly spirits? Keck spreads his net wide in the attempt to catch traces of angels and angelic beliefs in as many portions of the medieval world as possible. Metaphysics and mystery plays, prayers and pilgrimages, Cathars and cathedrals-all these and many more disparate sources taken together reveal a society deeply engaged with angels on all its levels and in some unlikely ways.

The only author already in print discussing the history of higher angels appears to be Mother Alexandra, an Orthodox nun who wrote The Holy Angels. This presentation also concentrates on those higher angels but also briefly reviews those lower less dramatic guardian angels. After studying angel apparitions in the Old Testament, the Christian era presents a dramatic increase in angel activities. Joining the older traditional Michael and Gabriel, we are introduced, at the Transfiguration, to Moses and Elijah, those two giants of Judaism These latter have, somewhere in time, become new archangels. On that Mount Tabor, Jesus also acquires archangel status, when the mighty spirit of David, the third giant, completes exactly one thousand years of penance, and is transfigured into this carpenter from Nazareth. Mary, the Mother of Angels in the Roman Catholic tradition, receives archangel status upon her death. Also emerging in that first Christian century is Satan, the Fallen Archangel. A serious consideration of Satan is vital, because each one of us must overcome Satan’s earthly temptations in order to reach the Promised Land. Thereafter, Mary and Jesus appear in angel form over the Christian centuries – sometimes together, more often alone - in their attempt to bring peace to a troubled world..

Writings that touch the pure-flaming heart of God ... from the men and women who walked with Him through the ages...guiding into a deeper friendship with the "Father of Lights."Today, when there is so much interest in the invisible world of angels and demons, how can we know whether the speculation about angelic interventions, swordplay in the heavenlies, and signs in the sky is true? What role do angels actually play in our lives?Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) stands among the rare handful of men and women gifted with true insight into the unseen, supernatural world. Known throughout the medieval church as a "spiritual doctor," he was given both a spectacular vision of angels and the wisdom to understand their purposes among men. May his words fix in your soul a vision of the beauty of God himself, and may you sense the help of angels, as they guide you to the real presence of the One true Lover of your soul.