The intellectual and spiritual stimulation of Thomas Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander makes this must reading for the well-informed, intelligent Christian living in this turbulent twentieth century. In this series of notes, opinions, experiences, and reflections-based on notebooks Father Merton has kept since 1956-the gifted Trappist monk examines some of the most urgent moral issues of the last decade. With his characteristic forcefulness and candor, he brings the reader face-to-face with such provocative and controversial issues as modern politicians, contemporary life and values, Communism, the "death of God," the Eichmann trial, and racial strife. There is much food for thought here, enough to arouse the consciences of all of us who are in a position to do something about them. In addition to reflections on current events, Father Merton comments on the contemporary thought of such diverse authors as Camus, Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, de Chardin and Barth, to name only a few. Finally, sparkling and humorous anecdotes of life in the monastery make this a delight to read. This is Merton at his best-detached but not dispassionate, humorous yet sensitive, at all times alive and searching, and with that facility of language which has made him one of the most widely read spiritual writers of this century.