Beacon: 545 books

Hope is rising. The political tide in the United States has turned, and people across the country who have been working for years for social change and justice finally feel as though they aren't struggling alone. Yet for those who ground their social activism in progressive religious belief, it is...

On September 24, 2009, Forrest Church succumbed to a three-year battle against esophageal cancer. As his final gift, the beloved minister and acclaimed author wrote one last book, leaving behind a clear statement of his universalist theology and liberal faith. The Cathedral of the World draws from...

Science entwines with matters of the human heart as a whale researcher chronicles the lives of an endangered family of orcas   Ever since Eva Saulitis began her whale research in Alaska in the 1980s, she has been drawn deeply into the lives of a single extended family of endangered orcas struggling...

An astute and timely examination of the re-emergence of scientific research into racial differences Superior tells the disturbing story of the persistent thread of belief in biological racial differences in the world of science. After the horrors of the Nazi regime in World War II, the...

**Named one of the best books of 2015 by The Economist A provocative exploration of the “new ecology” and why most of what we think we know about alien species is wrong**   For a long time, veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce thought in stark terms about invasive species: they...

A noted biblical scholar explores how the claim of divine choice has been used from ancient times to the present to justify territorial expansion and prejudice. The Bible describes many individuals and groups as specially chosen by God. But does God choose at all? Michael Coogan explains the...

A provocative book about rethinking hatred and violence in America   Over the centuries American society has been plagued by brutality fueled by disregard for the humanity of others: systemic violence against Native peoples, black people, and immigrants. More recent examples include the Steubenville...

The advancement of LGBT rights has occurred through struggles large and small-on the streets, around kitchen tables, and on the Web. Lawsuits have also played a vital role in propelling the movement forward, and behind every case is a human story: a landlord in New York seeks to evict a gay man from...

Taking a Chance on God explores how lesbians and gay men can claim both a positive gay identity and a fulfilling life of Christian faith.

In 2001, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation, sociologists Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas moved to Iowa to understand the rural brain drain and the exodus of young people from America’s countryside. They met and followed working-class “stayers”; ambitious and college-bound “achievers”;...

Translated Woman tells the story of an unforgettable encounter between Ruth Behar, a Cuban-American feminist anthropologist, and Esperanza Hernández, a Mexican street peddler. The tale of Esperanza's extraordinary life yields unexpected and profound reflections on the mutual desires that bind together anthropologists and their "subjects."

A spiritual advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr.; the first black dean at a white university; cofounder of the first interracially pastored, intercultural church in the United States, Howard Thurman offered a transcendent vision of our world. This lyrical collection of select published and unpublished...

Kelley unearths freedom dreams in this exciting history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora in the twentieth century. Focusing on the visions of activists from C. L. R. James to Aime Cesaire and Malcolm X, Kelley writes of the hope that Communism offered, the mindscapes of...

Tracing his story of becoming a US citizen, José Orduña’s memoir explores the complex issues of immigration and assimilation. José Orduña chronicles the process of becoming a North American citizen in a post-9/11 United States. Intractable realities—rooted in the continuity of US imperialism...