"This book ... is concerned to open up some of the conditioning factors which reveal the concerns of the ecclesiastical authorities for the formal representation of Marian teaching. The following chapters aim to show how the Marian altarpiece was responsive both to developments in dogma and to major stylistic changes in the course of the period 1320-1630. These changes were grounded in the visual strategies by which the spatial and lighting systems of the painting reflected those of the viewer, so as to impart to the painted image the convition of reality derived from sensory experience. The book makes a distinction between the theological and the cult image in order to isolate those aspects of Marian devotion which the Church embraced as doctrinally important."--Preface, p. xii.

Robert Cardinal Sarah calls The Day Is Now Far Spent his most important book. He analyzes the spiritual, moral, and political collapse of the Western world and concludes that "the decadence of our time has all the faces of mortal peril." A cultural identity crisis, he writes, is at the root of the problems facing Western societies. "The West no longer knows who it is, because it no longer knows and does not want to know who made it, who established it, as it was and as it is. Many countries today ignore their own history. This self-suffocation naturally leads to a decadence that opens the path to new, barbaric civilizations." While making clear the gravity of the present situation, the cardinal demonstrates that it is possible to avoid the hell of a world without God, a world without hope. He calls for a renewal of devotion to Christ through prayer and the practice of virtue.

William Taylor explores the use of local and regional shrines, and devotion to images of Christ and Mary, including Our Lady of Guadalupe, to get to the heart of the politics and practices of faith in Mexico before the Reforma.

Foundations of Classical Sociological Theory: Functionalism, Conflict and Action provides an extensive analysis of classical sociological theory by giving readers an introduction to the life and ideas of all the eminent thinkers. The book begins by giving an overview of the emergence of sociology as a discipline in the background of socio-economic development that characterized Europe in 18th century. The first part of the book examines how the theorists viewed society as an organism; the second part takes cognizance of the conflict theory and third part deals with the emergence of action theory which took ambivalent position with regard to science and emphasized human agency and consciousness. Written in a very simple language, this book will help students delve deeper into the subject.