About this title: Saint Augustine, who spent 14 years composing this Christian and literary classic, wrote "City of God" as a defense of Christianity in the wake of the fall of the Roman Empire. "City of God" functions as a history of early Christianity, a critique of Roman polytheism, and a philosophy of history. Its central theme is the duality of good and evil. Augustine proposes a universal religious society, or "the perfectly ordered and harmonious communion of those who find their joy in God, and in one another in God."
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Image
Date Published: 1958
ISBN-13:9780385029100ISBN:0385029101
Description: Good. A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dustcover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "from the library of" labels. ******PLEASE NOTE****** Orders placed after Dec. 7 cannot be guaranteed delivery before Christmas unless you select EXPEDITED shipping! Thank you & Happy Holidays! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House
Date Published: 1950
Description: Fair. Hardcover. Random House-Modern Library Edition: 1950. No dust jacket, but red boards are in very good condition. The text of this book has a few pages with ink underlining but no highlighting. The spine is straight and uncreased and the pages are tightly bound. Not remainder marked and not ex-library. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Doubleday, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1958
ISBN-13:9780385029100ISBN:0385029101
Description: Fair. 551 pages, 1958 printing, "Abridged for modern readers by Vernon J. Bourke" book is aged but in decent shape, pages unmarked. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Image
Date Published: 1958
ISBN-13:9780385029100ISBN:0385029101
Description: Good. Good softcover copy, publishing date states 1958, but I believe it is a later printing due to barcode on back cover. Light wear. For quick delivery, please consider Expedited shipping-standard delivery ranges from 4-19 business days. Thank you! read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY
Date Published: 1958
ISBN-13:9780385029100ISBN:0385029101
Description: Good + Tight spine, previous owner's name and date inside front cover. Illustrated wraps, edges rubbed, corners slightly bumped, spine creased. Text has minimal underlining and only the paragraph headings, pages a little yellowed. 551 Pgs. read more
Description: Good. 0385029101 4th printing (March 1962) of 1958 edition. Different Cover. Binding square and tight, with spine creasing. Pages clean and unmarked. Shelf/edge wear is mild. Satisfaction guaranteed. Ships Immediately from CA. read more
Edition: Reprint Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Modern Library, New York
Date Published: 1963
Description: Very Good+ Hardback. Good Dustjacket. 6 x 8" Modern library Giant #G74; binding #G6 (1963-67; dustjacket has some chipping to spine ends, several other small tears to extremities; ----------SATISFACTION GUARANTEED---------FAST, COURTEOUS SERVICE------ALL DUSTJACKETS ARE COVERED WITH NEW CLEAR MYLAR PROTECTOR----- read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Modern Library / Random House
Date Published: 1950
Description: Very Good. I am an unused and unread copy who is internally immaculate with crisp cream colored pages and pastedown boards. My binding is as snug as the day I was printed. I have just the slightest hint of edge wear to my dust jacket on its front upper right corner tip, and my hard covers show only a hint of rubbing to their bottom free edge corner tips. Otherwise my dust jacket is pristine just as the rest of me is. The choice of standard shipping is via USPS media mail and can take up to 21 ... read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Modern Library; Random House
Date Published: 1950
Description: Good with no dust jacket; Reading copy. Ex-lib markings. Edgewear, sunning/fading of boards. Cloth covering front joint is worn and fraying, front hinge split. Pages good. Overweight; 3 lbs. Modern Library; Ex-Library; 8vo 8"-9" tall. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Modern Library
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780679783190ISBN:0679783199
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: Reprint. Modern Library Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Modern Library
Date Published: 1950
ISBN-13:9780394603971ISBN:0394603974
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Previous owner's name (ink) partially erased from front end paper, very light extremity wear otherwise a near fine copy. Sewn binding. Brown Boards. 892 Pages, Index. Audience: General/trade. This edition of The City of God is complete and unabridged. Saint Augustine explored and interpreted human history in relation to eternity. read more
"It's not that Augustine doesn't have a great mind--it's just that this one is of little interest to me. I don't need to be convinced that the Romans were superstitious and that adopting Christianity did not bring about the sacking of Rome."
""City of God" by E. L. Doctorow (from inside flap) In his workbook, a New York city novelist records the contents of his teeming brain--sketches for stories, accounts of his love affairs, riffs on the meanings of popular songs, ideas for movies, obsessions with cosmic processes. He is a virtual repository of the predominant ideas and historical disasters of the age. But now he has found a story he thinks may become his next novel: The large brass cross that hung behind the altar of St. Timothy's, a run-down Episcopal church in lower Manhattan, has disappeared....and even more mysteriously reappeared on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism, on the Upper West Side. The church's maverick rector and the young woman Rabbi who leads the synagogue are trying to learn who committed this strange double act of desecration and why. Befriending them, the novelist finds that their struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. Into his workbook go his taped interviews, insights, preliminary drafts...and as he joins the clerics in pursuit of the mystery, it broadens to implicate a large cast of vividly drawn characters--including scientists, war veterans, prelates, Holocaust survivors, cabinet members, theologians, New York Times reporters, filmmakers, and crooners--in what proves to be a quest for an authentic spirituality at the end of this tortured century.
MY THOUGHTS: I tried really hard to read this book. But I just couldn't get into it. It is so, well heck, I can't seem to find the right word for this. To me it has no plot, it jumps from one subject to another without any warning. There are not chapters that begin or end. The subject can be on the cross on one paragraph and then jump to a story about a Holocaust Survivor. It's not organized right. You know what I mean? I am used to reading a book with chapters that have a beginning and an ending. With a plot that goes somewhere. But this book just doesn't seem to do that. I got about half way through the book and just couldn't go on."
"One of the great classics in all of Christian--no, check that--human history, The City of God presents two contrasting groups of people, or to use the imagery of the book, two contrasting cities: the earthly and the heavenly. Everyone in the world falls into either one city or the other, and Augustine painstakingly lays out their origins, their history, and their destiny.
This fifth century book was the classic Christian book throughout the church's history until the individualism of the Enlightenment finally overpowered it in the twentieth century. But what Augustine does here is what the individualism of the modern world claims it wants so badly: to find an identity. He defines Christian identity by placing it within the Christian community (both historically and in the present day). Augustine's implication is clear: one who identifies himself with Christ knows that through being identified with His people, the church.
This is certainly a difficult book to read, primarily for its imposing length, but also because so much of the history is so far removed from our everyday experience. That said, the theological narrative is clear throughout, and the hope that drives the work toward its conclusion makes it one of the most important books ever written."
"It is an embarrassment to rate The City of God like this, but it's all because of the translation. I slogged through it as long as I could, but then I had to go purchase a better version. I'm sure this newer version will rate better."
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