Great Souls: Six Who Changed a Century - Softcover

Aikman, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0739104381 ISBN 13: 9780739104385

Publisher: Lexington Books, 2002

Synopsis

As a senior journalist with Time magazine, David Aikman witnessed some of the most important world events and interviewed many of the prominent global power figures of his time. In this moving volume, Aikman profiles six of these figures: Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, and Elie Wiesel. He explains how each of these luminaries personify specific virtues that are sorely needed today: salvation, forgiveness, truth, compassion, human dignity, and remembrance. Aikman's meticulous research provides extraordinary insights into the lives of these great individuals who have changed the century by their works and personal examples. These beautifully written profiles―based on personal interviews with some of these "great souls"―provide the reader with models of excellence that will delight the mind and lift the spirit.

About this title

About the Author:

David Aikman is a former senior correspondent for Time magazine and covered international affairs for more than twenty years. He reported several Man-of-the-Year cover stories, including those on Deng Ziaoping, Corazon Aquino, and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Review:

Aikman deserves credit for writing biographies that not only are reliable and highly readable but also-because of the figures he chose to write about-morally elevating....Ultimately, Great Souls is about commendable qualities that people of any religious commitment, or even none at all, can and should recognize. (The Weekly Standard)

Readers with sharp dislikes for any of these six might be surprised to find themselves wavering after the author makes his case. They might even test the breadth of their human sympathy by trying to embrace both Mandela and Solzhenitsyn, both Graham and Wiesel. (Books and Culture)

Great Souls is a good read, eloquently showing how ordinary individuals with extraordinary discipline and will have risen above numerous kinds of adversity to influence the world for good. (San Antonio Express)

Great Souls...serves as an excellent introduction to six remarkable lives. Best of all, it answers the questions, "Where have all the heroes gone?" They are right in front of us. (Lexington Herald-Leader)

About this edition

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0739104381
• ISBN 13: 9780739104385
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416