Chris Lowney, Author of A Vanished World, to Give Talk at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Chris Lowney, author of the critically-acclaimed book A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden Age of Enlightenment (Free Press, 2005), will give a talk at the College of the Holy Cross on Oct. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom. The talk is free and open to the public.

All Class of 2009 students who entered Holy Cross this fall were to have read A Vanished World over the summer. The book is a history of Spain and the complex interactions among Jews, Muslims and Christians.

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said, "This bold and compassionate articulation of medieval Spanish history, with its complex interactions among Jews, Muslims and Christians, speaks directly to contemporary international crises ... This engrossing and illuminating book deserves the attention of a wide public."

Lowney is the author of Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World (Loyola Press, 2003). He lives in New York, where he is special assistant to the president of the Catholic Medical Mission Board, the leading U.S.-based Catholic charity providing health-care programs to the world’s people. He has traveled to Kenya, South Africa, Zambia and India to help launch CMMB’s major initiatives targeted at preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

At least 20 percent of Lowney’s royalties from the U.S. editions of his works are donated to charities providing education and health care to impoverished children in the developing world.