Margaret R. Miles

Margaret R. Miles's most recent book is A Complex Delight: The Secularization of the Breast, 1350-1750 (University of California Press).

Articles by Margaret R. Miles

Books

Saving Paradise

How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire

by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker

Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire

Oct 21, 2008 reviewed by Margaret R. Miles
In this fascinating book, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker contest a widely held impression of Christianity.
Books

A second time around

Oct 21, 2008 reviewed by Diana Butler Bass, David S. Cunningham, Wendy Murray, Jeff Gundy, Mary Doria Russell, Harvey Cox, Vinita Hampton Wright, Gordon Atkinson, Margaret R. Miles and Diana Butler Bass0
What books compel a second—or third or fourth—reading? How is the second reading different from the first, and what does the difference reveal about the book or the reader? We asked ten writers, including Margaret Miles, Gordon Atkinson, Mary Doria Russell, Diana Butler Bass and David Cunningham, to name a book that they chose to reread, and to share their reactions "the second time around."
Books

Books in search of an author

May 06, 2008 reviewed by Edgardo Antonio Colon-Emeric, Margaret R. Miles, Lil Copan and Phyllis Tickle
"Of making many books there is no end,” says Ecclesiastes. Certainly more books are made than can be read, and many are produced that probably didn’t need to be. But there are some books that yet need to be written. Here are six suggestions:
Cover Story

God's love, mother's milk

An image of salvation

Jan 29, 2008 by Margaret R. Miles

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of late medieval and Renaissance paintings and sculptures depict the Virgin Mary with one breast exposed as she is nursing the infant Christ. The origins of the image are disputed, but whatever its origins, depictions of the lactating Virgin acquired new meaning and new urgency in mid-14th-century Tuscany. In communities under siege from plague, wars and malnutrition, the Virgin’s breast was a symbol of God’s loving provision of life, the nourishment and care that sustain life, and the salvation that promises eternal life.

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