Sociologist, social critic, and political radical C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) was one of the leading public intellectuals in twentieth century America. Offering an important new understanding of Mills and the times in which he lived, Radical Ambition challenges the captivating caricature that has prevailed of him as a lone rebel critic of 1950s complacency. Instead, it places Mills within broader trends in American politics, thought, and culture. Indeed, Daniel Geary reveals that Mills shared key assumptions about American society even with those liberal intellectuals who were his primary opponents. The book also sets Mills firmly within the history of American sociology and traces his political trajectory from committed supporter of the Old Left labor movement to influential herald of an international New Left. More than just a biography, Radical Ambition illuminates the career of a brilliant thinker whose life and works illustrate both the promise and the dilemmas of left-wing social thought in the United States.

Writing for Maclean's magazine in 1965, Peter Gzowski saw something different about the new generation of the left. They were not the agrarian radicals of old. They did not meet in union halls. Nor were they like the Beatniks that Gzowski had rubbed shoulders with in college. "The radicals of the New Left, the young men and women ... differ from their predecessors not only in the degree of their protest but in its kind. They are a new breed." Members of the new left-this new breed of radicals-placed the ideals of self-determination and community at the core of their politics. As with all leftists, they sought to transcend capitalism. But in contrast to older formations, new leftists emphasized solidarity with national liberation movements challenging imperialism around the world. They took up organizational forms that anticipated- "prefigured," some said - in their direct, grassroots, community-based democracy, the liberated world of the future. They had their radical ambitions, their oft-disputed problems, their broken promises, their achievements large and small. From 1958 to '85 the city of Toronto was one of North America's leading centres of this new leftism.

Radical. Crazy. Transformative and restless. Every word we read these days seems to suggest there’s a “next-best-thing,” if only we would change our comfortable, compromising lives. In fact, the greatest fear most Christians have is boredom—the sense that they are missing out on the radical life Jesus promised. One thing is certain. No one wants to be “ordinary.” Yet pastor and author Michael Horton believes that our attempts to measure our spiritual growth by our experiences, constantly seeking after the next big breakthrough, have left many Christians disillusioned and disappointed. There’s nothing wrong with an energetic faith; the danger is that we can burn ourselves out on restless anxieties and unrealistic expectations. What’s needed is not another program or a fresh approach to spiritual growth; it’s a renewed appreciation for the commonplace. Far from a call to low expectations and passivity, Horton invites readers to recover their sense of joy in the ordinary. He provides a guide to a sustainable discipleship that happens over the long haul—not a quick fix that leaves readers empty with unfulfilled promises. Convicting and ultimately empowering, Ordinary is not a call to do less; it’s an invitation to experience the elusive joy of the ordinary Christian life.

If the idea of walking with Jesus doesn't make you uncomfortable, you haven't thought seriously enough about His presence in your life. The passed-down, packaged Jesus turns out to be quite different from the one who steps alive and kicking out of the pages of Scripture. Author, pastor and radio teacher Chip Ingram outlines what it takes to follow this renegade Jesus toward the idea of Holy Ambition. Stretching outside of your comfortable existence is just the beginning. This newly updated edition will bolster dislocated hearts and turn broken spirits toward radical, faith-filled strategies that make a difference for God right now.

Ambition needs to be rescued and put to work for God's glory. This book will encourage and embolden believers to pursue their dreams with a godly ambition that seeks more for God and from God.

Born in the 1890s on opposite sides of the Atlantic, friends for more than forty years, Dorothy Thompson and Rebecca West lived strikingly parallel lives that placed them at the center of the social and historical upheavals of the twentieth century. In Dangerous Ambition, Susan Hertog chronicles the separate but intertwined journeys of these two remarkable women writers, who achieved unprecedented fame and influence at tremendous personal cost. American Dorothy Thompson was the first female head of a European news bureau, a columnist and commentator with a tremendous following whom Time magazine once ranked alongside Eleanor Roosevelt as the most influential woman in America. Rebecca West, an Englishwoman at home wherever genius was spoken, blazed a trail for herself as a journalist, literary critic, novelist, and historian. In a prefeminist era when speaking truth to power could get anyone—of either gender—ostracized, blacklisted, or worse, these two smart, self-made women were among the first to warn the world about the dangers posed by fascism, communism, and appeasement. But there was a price to be paid, Hertog shows, for any woman aspiring to such greatness. As much as they sought voice and power in the public forum of opinion and ideas, and the independence of mind and money that came with them, Thompson and West craved the comforts of marriage and home. Torn between convention and the opportunities of the new postwar global world, they were drawn to men who were as ambitious and hungry for love as themselves: Thompson to the brilliant, volatile, and alcoholic Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis; West to her longtime lover H. G. Wells, the lusty literary eminence whose sexual and emotional demands doomed any chance they may have had at love. Tragically, both arrangements produced troubled sons, whose anger and jealousy at their mothers’ iconic fame eroded their sense of personal success. Brimming with fresh insights obtained from previously sealed archives, this penetrating dual biography is a story of twinned lives caught up in the crosscurrents of world events and affairs of the heart—and of the unique trans-Atlantic friendship forged by two of the most creative and complex women of their time.

Biblical womanhood is not for the weak. In an age that seeks to obliterate God and His authority, modeling biblical womanhood involves spiritual warfare. RadicalWomanhood seeks to equip new believers and long-time Christians alike, exposing the anti-God agenda of the three waves of feminism to date and presenting the pro-woman truth of the Scriptures. Illustrated with numerous personal testimonies, this book will dig deep into the Word and show how it can be lived out today. The foundation and core message of Radical Womanhood is consistent with the traditional complementarian teaching on biblical womanhood. However, the target audience, tone, and style are radically different. Most books on this subject take a heavily didactic tone that assumes an awareness of Christian lingo and a high degree of spiritual maturity. Radical Womanhood has the narrative approach appreciated by postmodern readers, but still incorporates solid, biblically-based teaching for personal application and growth.

In this evocative ethnography, Omri Elisha examines the hopes, frustrations, and activist strategies of American evangelical Christians as they engage socially with local communities. Focusing on two Tennessee megachurches, Moral Ambition reaches beyond political controversies over issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, and public prayer to highlight the ways that evangelicals at the grassroots of the Christian Right promote faith-based causes intended to improve the state of social welfare. The book shows how these ministries both help churchgoers embody religious virtues and create provocative new opportunities for evangelism on a public scale. Elisha challenges conventional views of U.S. evangelicalism as narrowly individualistic, elucidating instead the inherent contradictions that activists face in their efforts to reconcile religious conservatism with a renewed interest in compassion, poverty, racial justice, and urban revivalism.

An intimate first book of personal essays and incisive commentary from the editor of Poetry.