This is volume #6 of Thomas Merton's personal journals. I have not read the other 5 volumes, but I certainly feel this volume humanizes Merton and supplies context for his life and the state of the Catholic Church in the first decade after the reforming Second Vatican Council of the early 1960s. This is not an idealized picture of monasteries or monks; of Merton himself or his love affair with "M."; or of the leadership in the Church. It does provide frank insight into how Merton thought about issues and himself. For me it is a welcome revelation about a very public/private human being and about the cast of characters in the late '60s who played their parts in his life and the life of the Catholic Church.