The Galleys at Lepanto by Jack Beeching (1982) is a marvelous book, so well researched and mellifluously narrated as to read almost as a fairy tale or an epic romance of yore, elegantly scribed in poetic prose. Foremost among the knights-errant in this tale of chivalry is Don John of Austria, illegitimate son of Holy […]
Moghul by Alan Savage, a pseudonym for a prolific British novelist, is a historic novel of adventure, sex, and brutality of epic proportions. As with Ottoman, Alan Savage’s previous dazzling adventure tome, this novel concerns and revolves around a fictitious (and not quite) renegade English family of male descendants, the Blunts, who while preserving some
From Babur to Aurangzeb — India under the Moghuls Read More »
A Time to Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran by Reza Kahlili is one of the most heartrending and enthralling accounts I have ever read of courage, dissimulation, and personal suffering in the genre of espionage memoirs. This is the story of a courageous man, who
Spying from the belly of the beast in the Revolutionary Guards of Iran Read More »
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” — First Amendment in the Bill of Rights An increasing
Introduction Recently, Tom Scholl, who identified himself as a pastor of churches in Ohio and New York, as well as holding positions in several ecumenical organizations, wrote a 3-part article for my local newspaper, The Macon Telegraph, titled “What the Koran says about Christianity.” I thought it would be an interesting series to read, but I
A Relevant and Brief History of Islam Read More »
The Sale of Indulgences A few words are in order regarding the Sale of Indulgences that Martin Luther so much decried. The clergy were authorized by the Catholic Church to absolve penitents from the guilt of his sins and from punishment in the hellish inferno of the hereafter, but it did not absolve them from
Martin Luther, the Sale of Indulgences, and the Reformation Read More »
