The Christian churches have frequently pioneered educational advances ? from the seventh century down to the nineteenth. Schools, universities and colleges of education stand as tangible evidence of these efforts. Do all these ventures belong merely to educational history ? relics of the days when Christianity was influential enough to play a leading part in education? Or has Christianity still a distinctive contribution to make to educational thought and practice? The educationalists who contributed to the Hibbert Lectures of 1965 are convinced that it has. They examine the nature of this contribution and show how it is to be made a time when education seems to be mainly influenced by secular rather than religious assumptions and aims. The six lectures fall into two main parts. Christianity in the schools is the theme of the first three; Christianity in higher education that of the last three.

New essays tracing the 18th-century literary revival in German-speaking lands and the cultural developments that accompanied it. The Enlightenment was based on the use of reason, common sense, and "natural law," and was paralleled by an emphasis on feelings and the emotions in religious, especially Pietist circles. Progressive thinkers in England, France, and later in Germany began to assail the absolutism of the state and the orthodoxy of the Church; in Germany the line led from Leibniz, Thomasius, and Wolff to Lessing and Kant, and eventually to the rise of an educated upper middle class. Literary developments encompassed the emergence of a national theater, literature, and a common literary language. This became possible in part because of advances in literacy and education, especially among bourgeois women, and the reorganization of book production and the book market. This major new reference work provides a fresh look at the major literary figures, works, and cultural developments from around 1700 up to the late Enlightenment.They trace the 18th-century literary revival in German-speaking countries: from occasional and learned literature under the influence of French Neoclassicism to the establishment of a new German drama, religious epic and secular poetry, and the sentimentalist novel of self-fashioning. The volume includes the new, stimulating works of women, a chapter on music and literature, chapters on literary developments in Switzerland and in Austria, and a chapter onreactions to the Enlightenment from the 19th century to the present. The recent revaluing of cultural and social phenomena affecting literary texts informs the presentations in the individual chapters and allows for the inclusionof hitherto neglected but important texts such as essays, travelogues, philosophical texts, and letters. Contributors: Kai Hammermeister, Katherine Goodman, Helga Brandes, Rosmarie Zeller, Kevin Hilliard, Francis Lamport, Sarah Colvin, Anna Richards, Franz M. Eybl, W. Daniel Wilson, Robert Holub. Barbara Becker-Cantarino is Research Professor in German at the Ohio State University.

The Christian churches have frequently pioneered educational advances from the seventh century down to the nineteenth. Schools, universities and colleges of education stand as tangible evidence of these efforts. Do all these ventures belong merely to educational history relics of the days when Christianity was influential enough to play a leading part in education? Or has Christianity still a distinctive contribution to make to educational thought and practice? The educationalists who contributed to the Hibbert Lectures of 1965 are convinced that it has. They examine the nature of this contribution and show how it is to be made a time when education seems to be mainly influenced by secular rather than religious assumptions and aims. The six lectures fall into two main parts. Christianity in the schools is the theme of the first three; Christianity in higher education that of the last three.

Jim Reed has taught German language and literature at the University of Oxford since 1961 and retires on 30 September 2004. This collection of essays in his honour consists of contributions from friends and pupils, and is principally concerned with Goethe, Heine, Nietzsche, Thomas Mann, and Brecht. The themes and approaches represented are those with which Reed himself has engaged in many of his own publications, beginning with Thomas Mann: The Uses of Tradition (1974) and The Classical Centre: Goethe and Weimar (1980), and which is summed up in the title given to his recent collection of essays -Humanpraxis Literatur-."

Tired of low pay and boring work, the women of the American Empire Insurance Company decide to take control of their lives. It isn't long until the management finds out their intentions and the confrontation begins. However, the women workers are ready to make changes. Ellen Anderson, a white factory worker from a small town, meets Karen Davis, a college-educated African-American professional and Pia Li, from New York's Chinatown to form a union and win better pay and benefits. The clash of cultures and the struggle against sexism intensifies their conflict, while an ever-worsening economy drives them to do what they must do to earn better pay and respect on the job. If you've ever wanted to try out union organizing to see if you've got what it takes, read this book.