Saints and Scoundrels: From King Herod to Solzhenitsyn

Saints and Scoundrels presents the complete stories of twenty heroes and villains from the birth of Christ to the fall of the USSR. Cheer as Wilberforce and Solzhenitsyn defeat political goliaths, wince as Prince John schemes and Joseph Smith prophesies, mourn as William of Orange is shotgunned by an assassin and Perpetua, a young mother, is martyred in the arena. The desires and beliefs that drove these characters still drive men today: Robin Phillips shows how Rousseau's Romanticism was connected to totalitarianism, how Dorothy Sayers and George MacDonald s thoughts on story and the Trinity affected their readers, and how Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt movement infiltrated America, among others.

At the end of each chapter are discussion questions relating the chapter's themes to larger issues (whether biblical, philosophical, or cultural), and a personal challenge applying the lessons from these lives to the reader and current society. The book also contains a glossary of bolded terms for quick reference, and a bibliography for further study--all the tools needed to bring the clash of history into the home or classroom.