Most Popular Books by Garry Wills

“Garry Wills brings his signature brand of erudite, unorthodox thinking to his latest book of revelations. . . . A tour de force and a profound show of faith.” (O, the Oprah Magazine) Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What The Qur''an Meant, coming fall 2017. In what are billed “culture wars,” people on the political right and the political left cite Jesus as endorsing their views. But in this New York Times-bestselling masterpiece, Garry Wills argues that Jesus subscribed to no political program. He was far more radical than that. In a fresh reading of the gospels, Wills explores the meaning of the “reign of heaven” Jesus not only promised for the future but brought with him into this life. It is only by dodges and evasions that people misrepresent what Jesus plainly had to say against power, the wealthy, and religion itself. But Wills is just as critical of those who would make Jesus a mere ethical teacher, ignoring or playing down his divinity. An illuminating analysis for believers and nonbelievers alike, What Jesus Meant is a brilliant addition to our national conversation on religion.

New York Times Bestseller: A "remarkable and evenhanded study of Ronald Reagan" from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg ( The New York Times). Updated with a new preface by the author, this captivating biography of America''s fortieth president recounts Ronald Reagan''s life—from his poverty-stricken Illinois childhood to his acting career to his California governorship to his role as commander in chief—and examines the powerful myths surrounding him, many of which he created himself. Praised by some for his sunny optimism and old-fashioned rugged individualism, derided by others for being a politician out of touch with reality, Reagan was both a popular and polarizing figure in the 1980s United States, and continues to fascinate us as a symbol. In Reagan''s America, Garry Wills reveals the realities behind Reagan''s own descriptions of his idyllic boyhood, as well as the story behind his leadership of the Screen Actors Guild, the role religion played in his thinking, and the facts of his military service. With a wide-ranging and balanced assessment of both the personal and political life of this outsize American icon, the author of such acclaimed works as What Jesus Meant and The Kennedy Imprisonment "elegantly dissects the first U.S. President to come out of Hollywood''s dream factory [in] a fascinating biography whose impact is enhanced by techniques of psychological profile and social history" ( Los Angeles Times) .

Gary Wills has won significant acclaim for his bestselling works of religion and history. Here, for the first time, he combines both disciplines in a sweeping examination of Christianity in America throughout the last 400 years. Wills argues that the struggle now''as throughout our nation''s history''is between the head and the heart, reason and emotion, enlightenment and Evangelism. A landmark volume for anyone interested in either politics or religion, Head and Heart concludes that, while religion is a fertile and enduring force in American politics, the tension between the two is necessary, inevitable, and unending.

Nearly two decades after his death, John Wayne is still America''s favourite movie star. In this book, Gary Wills investigates such astonishing durability. He focuses on the manufacturing of ''John Wayne'' from the raw material of Marion Morrison - the young man from Iowa who became a myth. Wills charts Wayne''s rise to stardom, from the cowboy serials that almost doomed his career, through his breakthrough with John Ford''s Stagecoach and Howard Hawks''s Red River, to the pinnacle of his popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. John Wayne stood for an America that people felt was disappearing. He became the lens through which the American people saw their own and their country''s history. John Wayne''s story is a large one - as large as the truths, and evasions, with which his screen image was confected. It produced some film masterpieces, and involved some of the greatest talents in film-making. And it involved all Americans. It is a fascinating, unparalleled phenomenon which, with great insight, Gary Wills explains for the first time.

Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What The Qur''an Meant, coming fall 2017. In an age when self -help methods abound and meditation is a common prescriptive, Garry Wills-one of the most respected writers on religious topics today-offers an extraordinary journey through one of the oldest aids to spiritual contemplation. Drawing together history and readings from scripture, Wills explains the beads on the rosary and the moments in Christ''s life they represent, illustrating each mystery with a stunning Tintoretto painting. The result is an illuminating and poignant exploration of the power of prayer that will edify and inspire readers.

Bestselling author Wills showcases Henry Adams little-known but seminal studyof the early United States, and draws from it fresh insights on the paradoxesthat roil America to this day.

The author blames American''s long-standing mistrust of government on a misreading of history, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the Founding Fathers.

The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration than in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln was asked to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead, he gave the whole nation "a new birth of freedom" in the space of a mere 272 words. His entire life and previous training, and his deep political experience went into this, his revolutionary masterpiece. By examining both the address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words we thought we knew, and reveals much about a president so mythologized but often misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln came to change the world and to effect an intellectual revolution, how his words had to and did complete the work of the guns, and how Lincoln wove a spell that has not yet been broken.

From one of America''s foremost historians, Inventing America compares Thomas Jefferson''s original draft of the Declaration of Independence with the final, accepted version, thereby challenging many long-cherished assumptions about both the man and the document. Although Jefferson has long been idealized as a champion of individual rights, Wills argues that in fact his vision was one in which interdependence, not self-interest, lay at the foundation of society. "No one has offered so drastic a revision or so close or convincing an analysis as Wills has . . . The results are little short of astonishing" —(Edmund S. Morgan, New York Review of Books)

Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What The Qur''an Meant, coming fall 2017. Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills brings the same fresh scholarship, lively prose, and critical appreciation that characterize his well-known books on religion and American history to this outstanding biography of one of the most influential Christian philosophers. Saint Augustine follows its subject from his youth in fourth-century Africa to his conversion and subsequent development as a theologian. It challenges the widely held misconceptions about Augustine’s sexual excesses and shows how, in embracing classical philosophy, Augustine managed to enlist “pagan authors” in the defense of Christianity. The result is a biography that makes a spiritual ancestor feel like our contemporary.

Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What The Qur''an Meant, coming fall 2017. "The truth, we are told, will make us free. It is time to free Catholics, lay as well as clerical, from the structures of deceit that are our subtle modern form of papal sin. Paler, subtler, less dramatic than the sins castigated by Orcagna or Dante, these are the quiet sins of intellectual betrayal." --from the Introduction From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills comes an assured, acutely insightful--and occasionally stinging--critique of the Catholic Church and its hierarchy from the nineteenth century to the present. Papal Sin in the past was blatant, as Catholics themselves realized when they painted popes roasting in hell on their own church walls. Surely, the great abuses of the past--the nepotism, murders, and wars of conquest--no longer prevail; yet, the sin of the modern papacy, as revealed by Garry Wills in his penetrating new book, is every bit as real, though less obvious than the old sins. Wills describes a papacy that seems steadfastly unwilling to face the truth about itself, its past, and its relations with others. The refusal of the authorities of the Church to be honest about its teachings has needlessly exacerbated original mistakes. Even when the Vatican has tried to tell the truth--e.g., about Catholics and the Holocaust--it has ended up resorting to historical distortions and evasions. The same is true when the papacy has attempted to deal with its record of discrimination against women, or with its unbelievable assertion that "natural law" dictates its sexual code. Though the blithe disregard of some Catholics for papal directives has occasionally been attributed to mere hedonism or willfulness, it actually reflects a failure, after long trying on their part, to find a credible level of honesty in the official positions adopted by modern popes. On many issues outside the realm of revealed doctrine, the papacy has made itself unbelievable even to the well-disposed laity. The resulting distrust is in fact a neglected reason for the shortage of priests. Entirely aside from the public uproar over celibacy, potential clergy have proven unwilling to put themselves in a position that supports dishonest teachings. Wills traces the rise of the papacy''s stubborn resistance to the truth, beginning with the challenges posed in the nineteenth century by science, democracy, scriptural scholarship, and rigorous history. The legacy of that resistance, despite the brief flare of John XXIII''s papacy and some good initiatives in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council (later baffled), is still strong in the Vatican. Finally Wills reminds the reader of the positive potential of the Church by turning to some great truth tellers of the Catholic tradition--St. Augustine, John Henry Newman, John Acton, and John XXIII. In them, Wills shows that the righteous path can still be taken, if only the Vatican will muster the courage to speak even embarrassing truths in the name of Truth itself.

Now with a new introduction--award-winning historian Garry Wills''s definitive analysis of the Federalist Papers In 1787 and 1788, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison published what remains perhaps the greatest example of political journalism in the English language--the Federalist Papers. Written to urge ratification of the Constitution, the eighty-five essays--trenchant in thought and graceful in expression--defended the Constitution not merely as a theoretical statement but as a practical instrument of rule. Now updated with a new introduction, Garry Wills''s classic study subjects these essays to rigorous analysis, illuminating, as only he can, their significance in the development of the philosophy on which our government is based.

With a new preface: An "irreverent [and] entertaining" portrait of JFK, the Camelot mystique, and the politics of charisma ( The Christian Science Monitor). Described by the New York Times as "a sort of intellectual outlaw," Garry Wills takes on the romantic myths surrounding the Kennedy clan in this thought-provoking examination of electoral politics and the power of image in America. Wills argues that the much-admired dynasty, beginning with patriarch Joe Kennedy, created a corrupt climate where appearances were more important than reality, truth was discarded when it wasn''t convenient, and an assortment of devoted loyalists sacrificed integrity for the sake of reflected glory. Touching upon topics ranging from the manipulation of the PT-109 story in the media to the authorship of Profiles in Courage to the handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis to persistent rumors of extramarital affairs, Wills offers a persuasive look not only at President John F. Kennedy and his brothers Robert and Edward, but also at the bubble that existed around them and lured in some of the best and brightest of the era. From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Why I Am a Catholic, The Kennedy Imprisonment is "a brilliant and troubling study of the Kennedy era in American politics" ( The Philadelphia Inquirer).

In Under God, Pulitzer Prize winner and eminent political observer Garry Wills sheds light on the frequent collision between American politics and American religion. Beginning with the 1988 presidential contest, an election that included two ministers and a senator accused of sin, award-winning author Garry Wills surveys the tapestry of American history to show the continuity of present controversies with past religious struggles, and argues that the secular standards of the Founding Fathers have been misunderstood. He shows that despite reactionary fire-breathers and fanatics, religion has often been a progressive force in American politics, and explains why the policy of a separate church and state has, ironically, made the position of the church stronger. Marked by the extraordinary quality of observation that has defined Will’s work, Under God is a rich, original look at why religion and politics will never be separate in the United States.

“If you think you knew Paul, get ready to have all sorts of cherished preconceptions exhilaratingly stripped away. If you''ve ever been vaguely curious, there is no finer introduction.” (Los Angeles Times) Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What The Qur''an Meant, coming fall 2017. In his New York Times bestsellers What Jesus Meant and What the Gospels Meant, Garry Wills offers fresh and incisive readings of Jesus'' teachings and the four gospels. Here Wills turns to Paul the Apostle, whose writings have provoked controversy throughout Christian history. Upending many common assumptions, Wills argues eloquently that Paul’s teachings are not opposed to Jesus'' message. Rather, the best way to know Jesus is to discover Paul. In this stimulating and masterly analysis, Wills illuminates how Paul, writing on the road and in the heat of the moment, and often in the midst of controversy, galvanized a movement and offers us the best reflection of those early times.

Now in paperback, Wills''s acclaimed book presents a new way of relating the history of the city through its art and, in turn, illuminates the art through the city''s history. Illustrated with more than 130 works of art, 30 in full color.

The early chapters of the "Confessions" are a source of information on one of the most important relationships in Saint Augustine''s life. This book is largely about his, and Wills argues that this is fundamental to the understanding of Augustine''s character, theology and worldview.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Lincoln at Gettysburg" brings his eloquence, his wit, and his on-target perceptions of American life and politics to this fascinating, well-drawn portrait of John Wayne, a true 20th-century hero. "Deeply satisfying at every level".--Michael Stern, "San Francisco Chronicle". of photos.