Books we're reading this month
Terror and Civilization: Christianity, politics, and the western psyche by Shadia B Drury (2004, Palgrave Macmillan)
Who knew there was still room to make shocking revelations about events 2,000 years ago? Yet this is what Drury brings in this small volume (157 pages) that packs a considerable punch.
If those politicized Christians both sides of the border, so prominent lately, are looking for evidence of anti-Christian manifestos, they need look no further than this holder of the University of Regina Canada Research Chair in Social Justice.
Drury goes back to the source—the Bible—and uncovers not the peace-loving, inclusive brotherly founder of this religion, but one who threatens anyone who doesn't follow his way to an eternal, flesh-melting hell. Consequently, the violence endemic to Christianity's political history is not aberration, but part and parcel of what it means to be Christian.
Particularly gruesome is Drury's discovery that the primary feature of the Christian heaven is a window directly opening onto the Christian hell. Who, she rightly asks, would consider it wonderful to be able to watch others squirm in eternal torment? Christians, that's who—and Jesus first among them.
What a book. Drury was first, as early as 1997, in picking out the significance of then-unheard of “neo-cons” and Leo Strauss in her Leo Strauss and the American Right. Let's hope and pray this new book is not also a prophesy.
- Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org> |
The Gruesome Acts of Capitalism by David Lester (Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2005)
Lester's pocket-sized book is a handy argument-enhancer, packed with hundreds of quick facts in crafty presentation, all of them reliably sourced.
Like: 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to die of AIDs, while only 300,000 receive life-saving treatments. And: two thirds of US companies paid no income taxes between 1996 and 2000. Get the book, win arguments.
- Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org> |
Second-Rate Nation: From the American dream to the American myth by Sam D Sieber, (Paradigm Publishers, 2005)
Sieber spends half this book documenting how in all ways besides straight out income the United States measures up unflatteringly against other advanced industrial nations. He spends the other half wondering about why Americans are so deluded into thinking they have it best in the world, and what it might mean when they find out the truth.
This is another of those books, this time over 300 pages, that are handy for those who find themselves frequently in arguments about where America is and where it is going. Sieber is a statistical wiz, and formerly Senior Researcher at Columbia University. Insofar as America affects the world, it is high time everyone acknowledge the fact, and make hasty preparations for its effects, that this global empire is spinning out of control in a deep and multifaceted crisis. Sieber, a loyal American, thinks there is a recovery plan. I don't.
- Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org> |
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