Paul Moses, friend and colleague, has written a wonderfully researched and presented history of St. Francis of Assisi, who previously existed (for many here in Brooklyn) only as a parish and a school.
St. Francis of Assisi School, in fact, sits over there on Lincoln Rd. near Nostrand Avenue, and is celebrating its centennial.
That is the old Brooklyn, one might say.
Even more meaningful, I think, is what this book by Professor Moses of Brooklyn College says for the new Brooklyn, now composed of so many Muslims from around the world.
For it turns out that St. Francis was an iconoclastic reacher out to other peoples, who at the time of the Crusades literally extended a hand of peace to the Sultan of Egypt.
It was a gesture captured by Paul in documentary fashion, deeply and with an historian/journalist's attention to detail, in his book "The Saint and the Sultan: the Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace."
Paul is on Facebook, by the way, eager to share with those who care (about journalism, history and world peace).
So it seems a Pulitzer Prize in journalism is not a career-stopper for one (like Paul) seeking to cross old boundaries between disciplines!
History, journalism and Brooklyn College are better for the effort.
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