I really like this. It's a very clear, entertaining exploration of our drive for immortality throughout history. I'm not sure that escaping death is qI really like this. It's a very clear, entertaining exploration of our drive for immortality throughout history. I'm not sure that escaping death is quite so central to all that we do. But Cave weaves a fascinating mega-story with a great rationale. Our efforts to keep living, hopefully forever, take four main forms: (1) make the body last forever; (2) arrange for the body to be resurrected (and then last forever); (3) arrange for the soul to live forever; (4) arrange for your fame, beauty, accomplishments, progeny, or whatever, to give you some eternal legacy. Those hopes or strategies, Cave claims, are what drives civilization, religion, and just about everything. It seems he takes even the Buddhist remedy for suffering, of relinquishing all attachment to things that pass away, is yet another strategy for gaining eternal existence....more
I like Rossano’s casual way of discussing how people do or don’t experience something sacred. He looks at it as a matter of relatedness, and views theI like Rossano’s casual way of discussing how people do or don’t experience something sacred. He looks at it as a matter of relatedness, and views the evolution of religion as a story of how people have related and found meaning in their lives. He examines “agency detection,” by which people see intelligent animation in nature, in animals, in collective associations of people, or in the universe. They experience a sense of relationship, and “you can’t prove to somebody that they don’t have a relationship.” For those who experience relatedness, “experience in the evidence.” It’s an interesting history starting around 70,000 BCE, in which, as Robin Horton put it, religion can “be looked upon as an extension of the field of people’s social relationships beyond the confines of purely human society.”...more
Zakaria is genially informative, sizing up the cumulative effects of early-modern Dutch and English “revolutions,” then the French, industrial, and inZakaria is genially informative, sizing up the cumulative effects of early-modern Dutch and English “revolutions,” then the French, industrial, and informational revolutions. But that’s just the first half of the book. Then he examines the recent mounting cascades of economic, political, and social change, giving some of the most objective, insightful commentary I’ve seen. ...more
This book was a pioneering study of ordinary Japanese people’s roles and experiences in WWII. Where most previous research had focused on the central This book was a pioneering study of ordinary Japanese people’s roles and experiences in WWII. Where most previous research had focused on the central leaders in a rigidly top-down system, Yashimi and his colleagues examined local records, personal letters, or memoirs by retired veterans of the foreign or home fronts. Where many politicians or historians claimed that the common people were basically powerless pawns, Yashimi found personal initiative among the common soldiers, farmers, or women of the Ladies’ Patriotic Associations. These people shared the aspirations for economic expansion. They took pride in Japan’s victories, in that age of ruthlessly competing colonial empires. And rather than blaming all Japan’s war crimes on the nation’s top leaders, they commonly confessed their own roles in the brutality. Where critics from China to Germany criticized Japan’s apparent “lack of self-introspection” over its atrocities, Yoshiaki found that ordinary people were often deeply reflective and remorseful: “This reaffirmed to me the great importance of the building of a peaceful Japan based upon the Japanese people’s experience of the war.”...more
Okay, I was a white boy in Texas, so I grew up smelling white rage in the air, but I didn’t know the fire was that bad. Anderson documents the murderoOkay, I was a white boy in Texas, so I grew up smelling white rage in the air, but I didn’t know the fire was that bad. Anderson documents the murderous vengeance inflicted on newly freed blacks in the wake of the Civil War. She details how the “Black Laws” required ex-slaves to sign abusive annual farm labor contracts, or else be arrested for the crime of “vagrancy.” She explains how the courts lobotomized the constitutional amendments granting blacks freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote—by splitting the power to enact law from the authority to enforce it, as when Supreme Court Justice Morrison White declared (in 1874) “The Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone,” because “the right to vote … comes from the states.”
The account is horrific, but some of it seems so farcical that it’s almost funny. Blacks in Detroit who dared to purchase a decent house in a mainly white neighborhood, and were then attacked by mobs of furious whites, were warned by mayor Johnny Smith: “I believe that any colored person who endangers life and property simply to gratify his personal pride, is an enemy of his race and an incitement of riot and murder.”
Anderson traces the rise of white rage against the civil rights movement, with George Wallace campaigning across America in 1968, warning that blacks were breaking out of crime-filled ghettos to invade “our streets, our schools, our neighborhoods.” Upstanding whites defended the right to exclude blacks as a fundamental freedom: “We are not going to compel children who don’t choose to have an integrated education to have one.” When whole school districts were closed down rather than obey federal orders to integrate, upholders of white rights accused that “blacks had chosen integration over education.”
One thing that sounds odd to me is the way Anderson feels she must talk about human rights in terms of nationalism. She keeps arguing that treating people fairly and educating children is the best way to make America great. She takes patriotic pride in the victory of electing the first black president. Then she surveys the rising tide of white fury, with mounting determination to restrict “illegitimate voting” and take the country “back.” Even the relatively genteel Mitt Romney finds his pride offended, as he wishes that Obama “would learn to be an American.” ...more
This book starts off brilliantly, with a Toronto street scene described in ways that evoke whole worlds of memory, wonder, and myth. And Rowland’s proThis book starts off brilliantly, with a Toronto street scene described in ways that evoke whole worlds of memory, wonder, and myth. And Rowland’s proposed intellectual adventure sounds promising – to reconnect with life as a unity of spirit through a grand family vacation to famous sites of medieval French history.
Rowland feels that the modern world has lost its sense of wonder and wholeness. Quantitative science and cost-benefit economics have reduced “value” to a margin of profit. Nothing is deemed to exist unless it can be physically measured. He wants to take his teenage kids to a world where the sacred and mundane were one, and he hopes to do this by visiting France's greatest cathedrals, its beautiful rural towns, and, strangely enough, the ruins of fortress castles where followers of the heretical Cathar sect made their last stands against the armies of Catholic orthodoxy.
According to Rowland, the dualistic Cathars (who believed that the physical world was a creation of Satan) were forerunners of modernist materialism. The scientific revolution then split spirit from matter, and ruled that only the material is real. The old sense of the universe as one wonderous spiritual unity was lost. He discusses all this with his family as they go on their dream vacation, and it soon grows familiarly pedantic.
I got confused how the hierarchical universe of the Catholic inquisitors could be viewed as so holistic. Concerning the reductionism of quantified science, it seems to me we do have some literalistic scientists who claim that nothing exists unless they can measure it. And we do have some literalistic religious people claiming that nothing can exist that’s not in the Bible. But most religious and scientific people I know assume we're still exploring the universe, and endless wonders are yet to be discovered (or maybe revealed). We have social sciences to study how we relate, evaluate, and how we can live better. I thought Ockham's razor did not so much split the universe into material vs imaginary, as to unite the heavenly and earthly into one cosmos.
All told, I'd say it was a great vacation. But the philosophical debates about what’s wrong with our perceptions sort of interfered with the perceiving....more
This novel builds on remarkably detailed research into the world of enslaved people in the 1700s. Then it fills in the universe of personal experienceThis novel builds on remarkably detailed research into the world of enslaved people in the 1700s. Then it fills in the universe of personal experience with close to the greatest performance of empathetic imagination I've ever seen. I'm really glad to have read it....more
Ghodsee urges looking at how personal and family life could be better. She urges us to look beyond the nuclear family box of patrilineal, patrilocal tGhodsee urges looking at how personal and family life could be better. She urges us to look beyond the nuclear family box of patrilineal, patrilocal tradition, for ways to generate more cooperation, from more people, on parenting and partnering. To generate food for thought she looks across history, giving an academic-style examination of possibilities. But sometimes she very personal. For example,
Rather than embrace the hegemonic realpolitik and greed-lionizing sensibilities of the 1980s, I carried on imagining the possibility of different worlds. I discovered that learning about other political and economic systems opened my mind to the possibility that the reality in which I lived was not the only one available. Once I started thinking about the world not as it was but as it might be, I could more clearly diagnose the problems with my own time and space--and mentally play with possible solutions.
There’s one other quote I’d like to share here, which exposes something of the challenge she’s trying to meet. Concerning “family values conservatives,” she notes that in 1979, Jeane Kirkpatrick, who became Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the U.N., wrote an article explaining why the USA supported traditional autocrats around the world. Here is a paragraph from that article, which was called “Dictatorships & Double Standards.”:
Traditional autocrats leave in place existing allocations of wealth, power, and other resources which in most traditional societies favor an affluent few and maintain masses in poverty. But they worship traditional gods and observe traditional taboos. They do not disturb the habitual rhythms of work and leisure, habitual places of residence, habitual patterns of family and personal relations. Because the miseries of traditional life are familiar, they are bearable to ordinary people, who, growing up in the society learn to cope, as children born to untouchables in India acquire the skills and attitudes necessary for survival in the miserable roles they are destined to fill....more
Spong's perspective on religion in general is nearly as broad as Joseph Campbell’s. His personal journey from total believer, to scholarly critic of sSpong's perspective on religion in general is nearly as broad as Joseph Campbell’s. His personal journey from total believer, to scholarly critic of simplistic traditions, to seeker of mystical insight, resembles that of Reza Aslan. I enjoyed his reflections a lot, and took a pile of notes. Many of his lines are almost unforgettable. ...more
The great Jewish historian Ilan Pappé pulls together a competent team of scholars to investigate similarities between the issues and proposed solutionThe great Jewish historian Ilan Pappé pulls together a competent team of scholars to investigate similarities between the issues and proposed solutions to ethnic conflict in South Africa and Israel. Of course they deal with objections that the two situations “cannot be compared” (because “they are not the same”). They stress that “comparing” means discerning both similarities and differences, rather than simply equating different situations.
The contributors examine differences in the ways apartheid South Africa discriminated between races, and the ways Israeli policy discriminates between Arabs and Jews. They detail the differences in legal rights between Arab Israeli citizens (whose ancestors did not flee in the ethnic cleansing war of 1948), and Palestinians in the areas occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. They look at how South Africa and Israel have functioned as “ethnocracies,” with tensions between “ethno-nationalism” and “civic nationalism” in determining people's basic rights. They compare South Africa’s “Bantustans” with the Palestinian occupied territories. Probably the book’s most important comparison is between the strategies of human rights advocates in both countries, with their implications for what works for resolving social division.
Concerning the historical similarity between apartheid South Africa and Israel, Ilan Pappé quotes Israel’s former-Chief of the General Staff, Rafael Eytan: "Blacks in South Africa want to gain control over the white minority just like Arabs here want to gain control over us. And we too, like the white minority in South Africa, must act to prevent them from taking us over."
Steven Friedman explains how the problem of co-existence in South Africa seemed insoluble for decades: "For years, scholarship and common wisdom insisted that blacks and whites could not share a political space in peace. The struggle for the end of apartheid seemed to be ‘necessarily a zero-sum game’ in which white rule would endure or be violently overthrown: either way, a common society was not possible."
But clearly it was possible. It was not a zero-sum game. Peace with equalized rights was better than endless war....more
Farrell is earnest about fairness, and feels that the prevailing public image of Mussolini is a biased stereotype. He tells present-day Italian admireFarrell is earnest about fairness, and feels that the prevailing public image of Mussolini is a biased stereotype. He tells present-day Italian admirers of the strongman that he will seek the “truth.” The resulting book balances coverage of Mussolini’s socialist and nationalist sentiments. It shows how, in the post-WWI tide of communist idealism, Mussolini tried to cast the struggle of civilization not as a worker vs. owner battle, but a struggle of patriots and producers vs. ideologues and parasites. Farrell depicts Mussolini trying to straddle the left vs. right divide, as a modestly intellectual defender of the ordinary, realistic people:
Only collaboration between the productive proletariat and the productive bourgeoisie can succeed in advancing civilization. ... We don’t believe in a single solution—whether of an economic, political, or moral kind—a linear solution to the problems of life, because, oh illustrious ballad singers of all varieties—life is not linear …. Two religions vie today for domination over spirits and the world: the black and the red. From two Vaticans, today, encyclicals depart: from the one in Rome and the one in Moscow. We are heretics of these two religions. We alone, are immune from the contagion.”
His calls to unite in strengthening the nation seemed inspiring, vigorous, and manly. Farrell describes how the hero-worship Mussolini attracted grew stunning, especially from Italy’s women. But to be truly admirable, something more was needed, namely some dominance over others in the world. Though his rhetoric seemed to challenge extremism, his gut-level emotional needs drove him toward picking fights and seeking trophies—in Ethiopia, Spain, Albania, or Greece. Perhaps his real primordial “philosophy” came down to this confession: He who does not feel the need to do a little war, for me is not a complete man. War is the most important thing in the life of a man, like maternity in that of a woman …
I suppose the main objectivity of the book is showing how other national leaders of the time also combined intellectual flexibility, devotion to public service, and truly barbaric traditional bigotry, such as the revolting anti-Semitism expressed by Winston Churchill in the 1920s ("international Jews" were "leaders of a worldwide conspiracy to overthrow civilization"). But although Farrell announces impartiality as his primary goal, I think hostility to leftists shines through. In describing the Spanish civil war, he makes the leftists defending the Republic seem more murderous than Franco’s Fascist forces....more
This book is almost too well researched. Its full of powerful stories, with a level of detail that can get overwhelming. The main overwhelming thing, This book is almost too well researched. Its full of powerful stories, with a level of detail that can get overwhelming. The main overwhelming thing, however, is the degree to which idealistic ideology could be submerged by compulsive emotional obsessions. The Soviets arrived like a mighty wave of crusaders, proclaiming their cause to liberate humanity from barbaric injustice. But their paranoid obsession with eliminating disloyalty rivaled that of the Romans, who had banned any local organizations they could not control, even associations of volunteer firefighters. Instead of treating Polish partisans fighting the Nazis as comrades against a common foe, the Russians disarmed and imprisoned them. Next they suppressed all local organizations for self-help in war-devasted communities. Anything the Russians didn’t control, they treated as an enemy. As Applebaum quotes Wolfgang Leonhard,
It was impossible for Stalinism to permit the creation of independent initiative from below, of anti-Fascist, Socialist or Communist movements or organizations, because there was a constant danger that such organizations would escape control and try to resist directions issued from above.
Applebaum explores the effects of that obsession over the following decade in Poland, Hungary, and East Germany, up to the explosion of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. If anybody doubts the degree of popular hostility against Russian domination in Eastern Europe, this documents it....more
Plokhy puts the current Russia–Ukraine war into a 600-year perspective. Over that whole period, he traces the almost constant tension between three maPlokhy puts the current Russia–Ukraine war into a 600-year perspective. Over that whole period, he traces the almost constant tension between three major “tribes” of East Slavs, with the Moscow-based “Great Russians” constantly pushing to legitimate and impose their dominance over “Little Russians” (Ukrainians) and “White Russians” (Belarusians). The rulers of Muscovy claimed inherited lordship, concocting royal bloodlines back to Caesar Augustus. At one point they held the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople prisoner until he agreed to elevate the head of Moscow’s church to equal rank, with supremacy over the churches of other Slavic regions. The Tsars (Caesars) of the “Third Rome” insisted that Great, Little, and White Slavs were all one in blood, faith, and language, while repeatedly suppressing their subordinates’ actual differences in faith and language. Until the 20th century, the empire simply punished printing or teaching in Ukrainian or Belarusian, without providing a school system to teach the children Russian instead. Even Vladimir Lenin warned that Great Russian chauvinism was the main threat to comradeship among the republics of the Soviet Union.
This book explores an ongoing challenge—how to unite the people of a multi-ethnic state, if certain groups are deemed the “real” citizens. The Russian empire’s many expansions westward have been hailed as “recoveries” of kingdoms lost to their rightful lords (“torn away by force … reunited by love”). And now Putin insists that Ukraine must be restored to the fatherland by any means necessary. As Plokhy explains, “It is in pursuit of that vision that Russia has lost it’s way to modern nationhood, and in that sense has become a ‘lost kingdom’ in its own right.” ...more
This is excellent journalism that weaves together decades of stories around one main insight. Pilling finds a theme in modern Japan, not so much of suThis is excellent journalism that weaves together decades of stories around one main insight. Pilling finds a theme in modern Japan, not so much of successful development but of perseverance in overcoming enormous disasters—earthquakes, tsunamis, nationwide devastation in war, “lost decades” of economic downturn, even a nuclear power plant meltdown. Perhaps too much of the book deals with economic conditions and strategies. But the main story comes from talking to ordinary people, learning how they've coped with dramatic challenges, usually while managing to improve the quality of their lives....more
Holland explains church history less like a modern observer than like a participant in past events. His historical accuracy lies in expressing the vieHolland explains church history less like a modern observer than like a participant in past events. His historical accuracy lies in expressing the views and sentiments of church leaders as they would likely have put it themselves. In his dramatic account, early Christian heresies such as Gnosticism were disgusting perversions of God’s word. The violent subjugation of pagan religions across Europe was an heroic cleansing of moral depravity. The movement for priestly chastity purified the clergy from the pollution of love for women. In recent times, George Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq aimed at challenging Muslim leaders to be their better selves.
This book undertakes an enormous task—to trace the effects of Christianity on all societies across the world. Holland identifies a number of basic Christian innovations that have grown almost universally influential, such as compassion for the powerless, rule of just law, guidance through “conscience,” the sanctity of romantic love, or the distinction between religious and secular. His exploration of how these values have shaped history is often fascinating. But in discussing the history of such values, he has to examine the tensions between different versions of Christian values: “America’s culture wars were less a war against Christianity than a civil war between Christian factions.” That ongoing struggle, he claims, is itself a gift of the Christian heritage: “Any condemnation of Christianity as patriarchal and repressive [has] derived from a framework of values that was itself utterly Christian.”
In response, I have to comment that of course all other religious traditions have also influenced the world. All of them have their own histories of culture wars over which of their religious values are the “real” ones. Holland’s claim that all progressive "universal" values originate from Christianity is overblown. It leads him to view all progress as Christianization, leading toward an ultimate dominion of that faith over the world. I’m afraid that his book joins the parade of self-laudatory works, where one religion is claimed to hold the patent for inventing human goodness....more
Eaton is so objective that he gives humanizing accounts of Tamerlane and Aurangzeb. Beyond giving a detailed record of the Mughals and their deeds, heEaton is so objective that he gives humanizing accounts of Tamerlane and Aurangzeb. Beyond giving a detailed record of the Mughals and their deeds, he explores medieval India’s world of cultural interaction and political alliance between Muslims and Hindus. In this world, Muslim sultans claim patronage by Lakshmi and Saraswati. The Persian and Sanskrit literary worlds enrich each other. As a Jesuit emissary to emperor Akbar’s court complains, “The king cares little that in allowing everyone to follow his religion, he was in reality violating all.” For all their back-stabbing power-grabs, the emperors commonly aim to transcend ethnic loyalties and promote ranking by merit. It’s mainly the murderous wars of succession between dying emperors’ sons that drive a competition to prove moral superiority. Eaton examines the paradox that Aurangzeb’s efforts to rise above the old Persian and Hindu ideals of sacred kingship, toward a more standardized rule of law, led him to increasingly impose his own concepts of “universal law.” The book casts light on our more globalized efforts to control the military economy, find shared values for an international order, and overcome the emotional appeal of war between civilizations....more
Mahjoub slips back and forth between re-visiting his childhood haunts in Khartoum, and pondering the fate of Sudan. The local scenes he paints are beaMahjoub slips back and forth between re-visiting his childhood haunts in Khartoum, and pondering the fate of Sudan. The local scenes he paints are beautiful, desolate, and disturbing all at once. Clearly, the city is exploding: “At independence in 1956, it was less a city than a small town. The population of the entire country was put at ten million. Today the capital alone rivals that figure.”
He examines Sudan’s parade of tragedies, with the politicians and generals torn between urging unity between people of differing races and religions, and insisting on the ethnic and religious purity that must divide them: “I’ve never understood the idea of national pride. The notion of being proud of the place one happened, by chance, to have been born requires fetishizing the complete randomness of the fact. … Here, no matter how bad things are, pride is the answer to everything, eclipsing all the country’s shortcomings.”
Mahjoub finds some glimmers of hope, as investment from Chinese and other sources starts to pay off. But he also names the looming dangers, with sometimes frightful accuracy: “In the old days the golden rule for any ruler was to keep the army happy. This is no longer the case. The military has been slowly carved up. Real power is now in the hands of the myriad of security forces, the complex web of intelligence agencies, with a combined force of between forty and fifty thousand operatives. The protests over pay suggest some form of brinksmanship is underway. The security forces are demonstrating that they are not afraid of the army. With their network of informers, it is they who rule the country.” ...more
Cronin gives a detailed survey of changing realities for "marginal people" and "dangerous classes" in the 1800s and 1900s, including the hungry duringCronin gives a detailed survey of changing realities for "marginal people" and "dangerous classes" in the 1800s and 1900s, including the hungry during famines, bandits, beggars, prostitutes, nomads, and slaves. She documents the modernizing "mania for institutionalizing the marginal. Criminals were to be confined to prisons, the insane to asylums, street children to orphanages, women of unconventional morality to red-light districts and brothels, beggars to poorhouses, the contagious sick to hospitals." She carefully avoids over-simplification. It's informative. However, as the title includes the word "histories," I felt disappointed. The book offers a mass of sociological information, rather than a story....more
I greatly enjoyed Hessler's books on China, and this one on Egypt is even better. He has an easy-going, conversational, curious style, just talking toI greatly enjoyed Hessler's books on China, and this one on Egypt is even better. He has an easy-going, conversational, curious style, just talking to ordinary people like garbage collectors, shop owners, or local officials. Slowly he builds composite pictures that are more particular and more insightful than travel writing by V.S. Naipaul, probably because Hessler spends years in a place, learning the language and the cultural landscape.
Concerning who should replace the ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Morsi, a neighbor explains, "I don't care who he is, as long as he isn't nice. ... He needs to punish people. Morsi was too soft."
Furthermore, "Everybody welcomed the involvement of the army, because everybody assumed that the army would be on his side."...more
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