His graduate education was searingly interrupted by the death of his younger brother. Dorrien emerged from seminary as a social justice organizer and independent scholar. As he later explained to an interviewer, "I am a jock who began as a solidarity activist, became an Episcopal cleric at thirty, became an academic at thirty-five, and never quite settled on a field, so now I explore the intersections of too many fields." Over from Union Road is a rich memoir of this unusual journey and of Dorrien's later career. For eighteen years he taught at Kalamazoo College in Michigan, suffering the tragic loss of his beloved spouse Brenda Biggs. There he wrote the books that established his early prominence in social ethics and threw himself headlong against the invasion of Iraq. For nineteen years and counting he has taught at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University in New York City.
Dorrien tells his story with the same stylish prose and attention to personalities that mark his many acclaimed works in social ethics, theology, and intellectual history. Over from Union Road is a luminous interpretation of our time through the life experience of an eminent scholar-activist.