The last decade has witnessed considerable development in social theory within the Roman Catholic Church. Inspired first by papal statements such as Pacem in Terris by Pope John XXII and Pope Paul's Populorium Progressio, Catholic social theorists have found a fertile environment in tne new world. The Medellin Conference in 1968 laid the groundwork for the movement known as liberation theology in Latin America. In North America the hierarchies of the United States and Canada have isssued prophetic and sometimes stratling statements on nuclear arms and economic policy.

"The development of this project has taken many years and evolved in many unexpected directions as a result of the advice and feedback from many people. The subject is Darwin's Jews, that is, those Jewish thinkers in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries who have given Darwin a legacy within Jewish history beyond the tragic account of Nazi race theory and eugenics that all too often dominates the discussion of Jews and Darwin. For this reason, as much as any other, it seemed like a worthwhile endeavour. But the identification and selection of the different species of Darwin's Jews has proven to be difficult fieldwork, since there are so many ideological niches and environments for so many varieties of religious and non-religious Jews within the tangled bank of modern Jewish identity. Fortunately, I have not been working alone, and am grateful for the opportunity now to acknowledge the work of others"--