The Book That Changed My Life

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Dartmouth professors talk about books that had a powerful impact on them.

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“This book by one of the 20th century’s most influential theologians demonstrates meticulous, erudite scholarship in religion and theology that speaks powerfully to perennial questions of suffering, evil, and injustice in the world,” writes Assistant Professor of Religion Devin Singh about The Crucified God, by Jürgen Moltmann. The book “set me on the journey of scholarship in religion and informed my own quest for meaning in this life,” he says.

Assistant Professor of German Studies Petra S. McGillen cites Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. “Media, as McLuhan has it, are the secret driving forces of history,” McGillen writes. “When I assign Understanding Media in my seminars now, I am excited to see that this brilliant reflection on media technology has lost nothing of its provocative punch and prognostic value.”

John McPhee’s Encounters with the Archdruid “changed the trajectory of my career from medicine to geoscience,” writes Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences Justin V. Strauss. “McPhee explores the surprising commonalities and differences between environmentalist David Brower and a mining geologist, a real estate developer, and a dam engineer as they explore the wild forests, rivers, mountains, and coastlines of the United States.”

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