In 1969, the year following the death of Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen published his first book. Who, reading "Intimacy: Essays in Pastoral Psychology", at the time could have guessed that its 37 year old Dutch priest-author would become one of the most popular spiritual writers of the 20th-century? Nouwen had an enormous following among Protestants as well as Catholics. What was it about this man and his work that so resonated with the American psyche over the past 30 years? Deirdre LaNoue analyses Nouwen's voluminous writings in the context of his life and times, providing a key to his more than 40 individual books as well as a cogent summary of his contribution to the spiritual lives of millions of people.