Shaming the Devil

"Shaming the Devil" offers a compelling series of reflections that explore how hard it is to tell the truth about the world of culture -- and how central that task is to the Christian life. Employing the literary essay as a powerful means for cultural criticism and using other writers and thinkers as friends and foils in his quest, Alan Jacobs incisively and insightfully revisits the question asked by Pilate and so many others through history: bWhat is truth?b In the first part of the book, Jacobs contemplates the work of people whom he takes to be exemplary truth seekers: Rebecca West, W. H. Auden, Albert Camus, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Linda Gregerson, and Leon Kass. He then engages writers who challenge the search for truth: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Iris Murdoch, Wole Soyinka, Philip Pullman, and Anne Carson. The third section of the book consists of a single lengthy essay that pursues the provocative question of whether todaybs computer technology helps or hinders us in our pursuit of truth. Extremely well written and rich in wisdom, "Shaming the Devil" will appeal to anyone interested in literature, modern culture, and the Christian worldview.