Jesus Through the Centuries is an original and compelling study of the impact of Jesus on cultural, political, social, and economic history. The author reveals how the image of Jesus created by each successive epoch - from rabbi in the first century to liberator in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - is a key to understanding the temper and values of that age. In Mary Through the Centuries, first published in 1996, the author examines all of Christian history and culture to create the most complete portrait of the Virgin Mary ever written. Pelikan assesses the ways Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims, artists, musicians, and writers, and men and women everywhere have depicted, venerated, and been inspired by Mary, a symbol of hope and solace for all generations. --from inside jacket.