BiblioVault - Books about David

David to Corot: French Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum
Agnes Mongan
Harvard University Press, 1996
Library of Congress NC246.F64 1996 | Dewey Decimal 741.944090340747

The Harvard University Art Museums hold one of the world’s finest collections of early nineteenth-century drawings; the nearly 500 works reproduced in this catalogue include the most significant groups of drawings outside France by the masters of the age—David, Gericault, Ingres, Delacroix, and Prud’hon. Although familiar to scholars, the collection has never been the subject of a comprehensive catalogue, and many of the drawings are published here for the first time.

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The Direct Cinema of David and Albert Maysles
Jonathan B. Vogels
Southern Illinois University Press, 2005
Library of Congress PN1998.3.M3975V64 2005 | Dewey Decimal 791.430233092273

Boldly signifying the cultural issues of the 1960s and 1970s in groundbreaking pieces such as Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter, and Showman, filmmakers and brothers David and Albert Maysles used an approach to documentary film that involved spontaneous observation of naturally occurring events. With no rehearsed footage and no preconceived plots, their revolutionary work eschewed the authoritative voice-over narrator, didactic scripts, and the traditional problem-and-solution format used by the majority of their predecessors in the genre and duly influenced subsequent directors in both fiction and nonfiction film. Their collaboration from 1962 until David’s death in 1987 wrought thirteen major works in which the brothers critiqued the concept of celebrity with unglamorous footage of iconic figures, explored how commercialism hinders communication, and questioned the possibility of seeing anything clearly in a world abounding with both real and constructed images.

Jonathan B. Vogels outlines how the Maysles brothers blended a unique amalgam of direct cinema characteristics, a modern humanist aesthetic, and a collaborative working process that included other directors and editors. Looking at the films as both shapers and reflections of American culture, he points out that the works offer insights into a wide range of contemporary topics including materialism, celebrity, modern art, and the American family. In addition to describing the changes in technology that made direct cinema possible, Vogels provides careful, scene-by-scene analyses that allow for a consideration of the Maysles brothers’ films as films, a tactic not frequently employed in nonfiction film studies.

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The King David Report
Stefan Heym
Northwestern University Press, 1997
Library of Congress PT2617.E948K65 1997 | Dewey Decimal 833.914

In this retelling of the biblical story, King Solomon commissions Ethan the Scribe to write the official history of King David. In return for the finest cooking in the land and the wages of a minor prophet, Ethan must write a proper record, full of glory and battles, statecraft and honor--a tribute to David and, of course, to Solomon, his heir. But as Ethan explores the story, he finds another life hidden behind the iron curtain dividing past from present: the story of a David who seduced, lied, bragged, and plundered his way to power. Ethan wonders: which life should be reported in the King David Report?

Written by one of Germany's most acclaimed dissident authors, The King David Report is both an analysis of the writer's obligations to truth, and an astute satire on the workings of history and politics in a totalitarian state.

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Mexican Soundings: Essays in Honour of David A. Brading
Edited by Susan Deans-Smith and Eric Van Young
University of London Press, 2007

Treatises on Noah and David
Brian P. St. Ambrose
Catholic University of America Press, 2020
Library of Congress BR65.A313 D86 2020 | Dewey Decimal 222.1106

These sermons by Ambrose of Milan (340–397 AD) provide a window into the preaching and scriptural exegesis of the legendary bishop, whose exposition of the Old Testament was instrumental in the conversion of Augustine of Hippo and in the development of Latin theology. In his treatise On Noah and his two Defenses for David, Ambrose borrows from influential Greek theologians, including Philo of Alexandria, Origen, and Didymus the Blind, while developing his own commentary on the exemplary patriarchs. Ambrose’s exegesis typifies both his attention to the letter of Scripture as well as his spiritual and allegorical reading of the holy figures or “saints” who lived before Christ.

The first treatise presents Noah as a model just man, as Ambrose pairs the literal and the higher or spiritual meaning of the Genesis flood narrative to address topics ranging from the Genesis narrative to Stoic ethics to the Incarnation. In his defense of David to the emperor Theodosius, Ambrose ties David’s sin and repentance to his own close reading of Psalm 51(50), David’s plea for himself in his famous “Miserere.” While the authenticity of the third treatise included in the volume, the Second Apology of David, has long been challenged, recent scholarship suggests that it transmits Ambrose’s own preaching, which applies the lessons of David’s life to the situation of gentile unbelievers, Jews, and the church; even if it is the work of a later imitator, the Second Apology is a compelling and systematic treatment of the David’s sin and repentance as relevant to Christian morality and doctrine.

The three treatises, previously unavailable in English translation, broaden our understanding of exegesis in the Latin West and our interpretation of Ambrose as preacher and exegete.

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