Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
We seem to live in unusually contentious times. Tensions between established ethnic groups and against new immigrant groups seems on the rise. Many wonder if peace and justice still have a place in our future. In The Soul of America, Jon Meacham says the lens of history can offer a corrective perspective. Our current situation …
Ancient writers are known for sometimes considering women to be minor, unimportant, and perhaps not fully human. In the Gospels, that is far from the case. Women are not presented as lesser or one-dimensional beings. They are presented as people who show the full range of human agency, experience, and potential. Consider the array of …
This fall I’m releasing my new book, Write Better. To help celebrate that, we’re giving Andy Unedited a big facelift. What’s the new book about then? Writing is hard work. So in Write Better I want to make the job easier, especially for nonfiction writers, and help them do it better. I’ve loved words, reading, …
How frustrated are you? Really, how frustrated are you with the culture, the government, the economy, the church, your world, your career, your life? If you are a lot, you are a candidate for becoming a true believer. In his classic book The True Believer Eric Hoffer unpacks the dynamics of mass movements–who they attract, …
In a world of extremist language on all sides, what saddens me most is Christians who fail to speak with grace, humility, wisdom, and love. In short, who fail to act like Christ. No, actually, what saddens me most is when I fail to. Alan Jacobs puts his own advice into practice in How to …
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company has been a family-owned and operated business for over a hundred years, reflecting the unique visions of its two long-time leaders–William B. Eerdmans Sr. and Jr.
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In the last few years I’ve started a habit. A simple habit. And I have been a bit surprised how helpful it has been. This is the habit.
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Why are Americans so at odds with each other? Why have so many people entrenched themselves in opposing camps, viciously vilifying each other? What has turned us into a nation of Us vs. Them?
Is cable news responsible? Did the Russians do it? Does it go back to Newt Gingrich or the Robert Bork confirmation?
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The world is better than you think. Really? Really. Consider these–all based on UN statistics:
- Life expectancy has risen worldwide from 31 years in 1800 to 72 years in 2017.
- No country in the world has an average life expectancy of less than 50 years today.
- The percentage of undernourished people has dropped from 28% in 1970 to 11% in 2015.
Philosophy, notoriously, can be abstract and obscure. Yet philosophy is also a noble effort to grapple with some of the most difficult and pressing questions humans can face. What is the good? What is real? How can we know and be certain?
In A History of Western Philosophy C. Stephen Evans provides a model of conciseness and clarity in telling the story of Western philosophy from the days before Socrates to the present. As much as is possible Evans uses plain language to briefly tell the story of each key figure and of their ideas. Obviously, some passages can be hard but that is due to the difficulty of the material not the style of the author.
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