The Collected Ernie Kurtz

Book excerpt: Ernest Kurtz has been the outstanding thinker of the A.A. tradition's second generation, the one who played a constant leadership role in pushing the movement towards the highest professional standards of history writing and supplied some of its most influential interpretive concepts. His ideas are vitally important for anyone who wishes to understand A.A. history during the period following Bill Wilson's death in 1971. As a Ph.D. student at Harvard University in the 1970's, he was the first researcher to be granted full access to the archives of Alcoholics Anonymous. The book that resulted, Not-God: A History of Alcoholics Anonymous (1979), is still the classic work on early A.A. history. His book on the spiritual life-Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Modern Wisdom from Classic Stories (1992)-is equally well known, and has also been an enduring best seller through the years since it appeared. His work on Shame & Guilt (orig. pub. 1981, rev. ed. 2007) has given a whole new depth to the discussion of those two vital recovery issues. This present book, containing twelve key articles written by Kurtz between 1982 and 1996, gives us a fourth volume from his hand, displaying the impressive range and breadth of his thought on alcoholism, addiction, and spirituality. "Here under one cover is Kurtz at his best: historian, gadfly, teacher, interpreter, and master storyteller . This is must reading for any student of Alcoholics Anonymous and the evolution of spirituality in America." -William L. White, author of Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America