Silence: a social history of one of the least understood elements of our lives

Part I. Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829: Experiment in Silence

Man of Sorrows

Benjamin Rush's Vision

Good by Discipline

John Haviland's Star of Solitudes

Part II. The Monastic World: A History of Silence

In Proportion

Speech and Silence

Thomas Merton: Silence and the World

Measures of Time

The Voices of the Pages

The Great Silence

Part III. Philadelphia: Darkening the Dark

Night in Stone

"I get up and hammer my leather."

Punishment Within Punishment

"So that it may uplift ..."

Time Again

Part IV. The Silence of Women

Silencing Silence

"Or perhaps women ..."

Monastic Women: More Shadow Than Light

Part V. The Ends of Silence

Thomas Merton: Questioning Silence

The Monastic World: What Remains

The Prison Cell in Our Time

Intervals of Silence

Coda

In Ruins.