George Walsh – författare

The smiling gregarious O'Dwyer, Irish to his toes, walked a policeman's beat while studying law and became the crusading district attorney who broke up Murder Inc.Cotsello, the son of Calabrian peasants, turned early to crime in the streets of East Harlem, and never turned back. He and other young hoods--Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis--built a national crime network that extended from numbers to narcotics, from New York to California.A part of the syndicate's fiefdom was Tammany Hall. Only Tammany could crown a mayor. William O'Dwyer profoundly wished to be mayor of New York and in 1945 his wish came true. Then wide open gambling had a hey-day--numbers, race track wire services, crooked cops, a mob-controlled Tammany hall. And in the midst of it all, a burdened O'Dwyer, unwisely trusting in Tammany and his own subordinates, much beleaguered by gossip and by fact, was driven from office. Soon after, Senator Kefauver rode in on an electronic horse, and the scandals involving the mayor and the mob became public property.George Walsh has written a very American story of two men who took different roads to the same destination, of two "Public Enemies" and the crime that was.

This comprehensive survey of religion and its profound effects on history provides a historical context for in-depth analysis of theological, social, and political themes in which religion plays a major role.George Walsh first traces the rise and impact of primitive religions. He looks at Indian traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and analyzes the Semitic tradition of Judaism and Christianity and the evolving conception of a personal God. He discusses the history and chief doctrines of Islam as well, with its fundamental respect for desert tribal values and its emphasis on both the authority of God and the brotherhood of believers. Walsh then compares Judaism and Christianity. He sees Judaism as marked by a profound ambivalence between the values of tribal, nomadic desert life and the values of urban civilization, individualism, and collectivism. Judaism is "this-worldly," but the Christian worldview is "other-wordly."Walsh closes with a timely discussion of the ethical, political, and economic teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, focusing specifically on their differing attitudes toward sex, reproduction, and marriage; their basic views of mind and body; and man's relation to God.