Muhammad's flexibility, rather than casting a dubious light on his prophethood, emerges as an attribute of his political wisdom and leadership. And it seems that a similar spirit, protean and adventurous, guides Islam through those first few centuries of its ascent, when it breaks out of the little world of Arabia and is fertilised by the classical civilisations of Byzantium, Persia and India. "Indeed," Kadri writes, "Islam would have been incapable of developing such traditions without a capacity to learn and borrow." The traditions referred to here are architectural, but the point holds equally true for other schools of learning, like medicine, mathematics and – Kadri's speciality – the law. But beyond that, the book is sound, it is orthodox, it is Biblical -- throughout Brooks points the reader to The Book and The One Who inspired it. His aim is to show "that believers may in this life attain unto a well-grounded assurance of their everlasting happiness and blessedness." He then goes on to examine the nature of that assurance, hindrances that keep believers from it, reasons to encourage believers to seek it, and how they can go about it, the difference between true and counterfeit assurance, as well as answering questions about assurance. Examining the doctrine from so many angles, you really feel (and probably do) that you come away from this book having an exhaustive look at the doctrine. Divine light reaches the heart as well as the head. The beams of divine light shining in upon the soul through the glorious face of Christ are very working; they warm the heart, they affect the heart, they new mold the heart. Divine knowledge masters the heart, it guides the heart, it governs the heart, it sustains the heart, it relieves the heart. Knowledge which swims in the head only, and sinks not down into the heart, does no more good than the unicorn's horn in the unicorn's head. In terms of what has been written, the prose is light and readable. The one time it really dragged was due to the subject matter (the incredibly boring history of the American labor movement) rather than the author's style.

A child learns through sensory experience, gross and fine motor movements, and imitation. Learning is viewed a lifelong event in which the body, emotions, and the mind all come into play. (See Growth Mindset) From the time of conception, the fetus already starts to learn from his mother’s emotional state and the hormones she releases throughout the pregnancy. I liked my post about it last time more than anything I'd say this time, so let me just use it (the final paragraph is new):One way of finding balance and harmony in one’s household is to simplify areas in our lives from material possessions to more abstract ones including commitments and daily activities. the exposure to violence can desensitize children from pain and suffering, lead to aggressiveness, and make them perceive the world as a mean and dangerous place it could affect the stimulus-response pattern of a child because if the child doesn’t understand what’s happening onscreen, he won’t have the opportunity to question why (unless there is an adult present who can process what is happening)

I can't imagine leaving this discussion out of the book, because the link to Hegel is enormously important and explains the motivations of a huge number of communists. I think he probably needed to seek an editor that was more knowledgeable in the subject. He also should have probably included a chapter on postmodernism and its connection to Marx, since this is where the Hegelian stuff is important.Also he goes over a semi-history of the writing of the Communist Manifesto, but spends effectively zero sentences going over what is actually written in it. He doesn't have to print a word-for-word duplicate, but the overall theory is actually important to understand if you want to grasp the motivations of the characters later in the book. This is a strange oversight. the movements seen on screen are often fast-paced and exaggerated, the subtlety of pausing to appreciate small wonders such as the rain falling outside the windows are not shown A happy and harmonious child begets a beginnings of a well-adjusted adult. if we just meet this in the short-term perspective and give in to all their whims, there will also be short-term results and long-term repercussions This is an excellent book on socialism. Heaven on Earth is a readable and very detailed history of socialism through recent centuries. Joshua Muravchik was raised in a socialist home and was a “devout” socialist for a time. He recounts the history and life of some of the leaders of the socialist movement and shows the triumphs and failures along the way. There are four chapters on the Beginnings, four chapters on the Triumphs and four chapters on the Collapse of Socialism. At the end of this section is a very interesting chapter on the Kibbutz showing the most humane socialism. The book ends with an excellent Epilogue to bring us up to date.