The Shaking Of The Foundations

Author Biography: Paul Tillich (1886-1965), an early critic of Hitler, was barred from teaching in Germany in 1933. He emigrated to the United States, holding teaching positions at Union Theological Seminary, New York (1933-1955); Harvard Divinity School (1955-1962); and the University of Chicago Divinity School (1962-1965). Among his many books are "Theology of Culture, Dynamics of Faith," and the three volumes of "Systematic Theology."

Originally published in 1988, the author of the classic Family and Marriage in Britain (1962), Professor Ronald Fletcher here makes a new appraisal of the family in society today. Comprehensive in its range of material and straightforward in style, the book represents his thoughts on the family and marriage in Britain in the 1980s. Since the 1969 Divorce Reform Act, many anxieties had been felt and voiced about the trends of divorce, marital breakdown, the growing instability of the family and so on. The changes, however, were hard to discern and assess, statistical records difficult to interpret reliably. Ronald Fletcher discusses these continuing anxieties and presents a thorough-going critical review of these changes and statistics. In his conclusions he emphasises the continuing importance in modern society of the family and marriage. Professor Fletcher examines the family as both an agent and symptom of change. He explores in detail the relation between family life and the deeper long-term changes which had been at work throughout the twentieth century – the disrupting experience of world wars; the rapidity of technological and social change; the many-sided changes in communications; the spread of secularisation; and changes in education – seeking a profound and satisfactory causal explanation. He ends with a consideration of the future of the family and society alike, and what our social and educational policies ought to be if certain values and qualities of life are to be sustained. The Shaking of the Foundations is the companion volume to The Abolitionists (1989), in which Ronald Fletcher critically examines the anti-family arguments of the previous thirty years.

This book comprises the proceedings of the international conference Shaking the Foundations of Geo-engineering Education (NUI Galway, Ireland, 4-6 July 2012), a major initiative of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) Technical Committee (TC306) on Geo-engineering Education. SFGE 2012 has been carefully

Marriage and the Family presents an account of attitudes to marriage and the family in each of the major religious faiths - the Christian, Jewish, Moslem, Baha'i, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist faiths - and includes the Humanist views of marriage and the family. Each article is written by a member of the respective faith and includes an account of the particular faith portrayed. The material available in English for such ceremonies varies greatly in different faiths. For example, Buddhist marriage ceremonies are mainly of recent date and have emerged in the West where such ceremonies are presented here in en English translation probably for the first time. The book is introduced with an essay by Professor Ronald Fletcher on the rapidly changing attitudes to marriage and an assessment of their significance. Janet Trotter follows his essay with a description of the legal problems by ethnic minorities in Britain.