The methodology of the late Paulo Freire has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on especial urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction on Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.

    In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms.

    Geographical discovery, an emerging scientific tradition, and a climate of social change had splintered the unity of medieval Christian culture, and these changes provided the background for Luther's theological challenge. His new apprehension of Scripture and fresh understanding of man's relation to God demanded a break with the Church as then constituted and released the powerful impulses that carried the Reformation. Luther's vigorous, colorful language still retains the excitement it had for thousands of his contemporaries. In this volume, Dr. Dillenberger has made a representative selection from Luther's extensive writings, and has also provided the reader with a lucid introduction to his thought.A large number of Luther's works are presented in whole or excerpted, including:• The Freedom of a Christian• A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians• The Bondage of the Will• The Pagan Servitude of the Church [aka Babylonian Captivity]• Two Kinds of Righteousness• several Biblical Prefaces• several sermons• Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed• An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality [aka Address to the German Nobility]• The Ninety-five Theses• Theses for the Heidelberg Disputation