by Geneive Abdo & Jonathan Lyons ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2003
A thoughtful, reasoned contribution to the distressing affairs of the Middle East.
Which is stronger: the ayatollah or rock ’n’ roll?
Progressive Iranians, weary after 20 years of the ever-more repressive regime of the mullahs and their religious police, had much reason to hope that the inauguration of President Mohammed Khatami, a dark-horse candidate who in 1997 “had won by a landslide, beating out the handpicked conservative designated for the job,” would usher in a period of comparative freedom. And Khatami at first did much to reinforce that hope, write husband-and-wife journalists Abdo (No God But God, 2000) and Lyons, who were based in Iran from 1998 to 2001. Himself a journalist, Khatami declared, for instance, that the press would henceforth be free to criticize the government and himself, to say nothing of the clerics. The clerics responded angrily, bringing their considerable power to bear on the civil government and, in the authors’ view, repudiating the traditional Shi’ite Muslim vision of a society free of religious despotism. Abdo and Lyons point to a paradox that the Iranian government has failed to resolve since overthrowing the Shah: “Is it an Islamic state ruled by clerics or a republic ruled by the people?” Neither, it would appear—or perhaps both, though in either instance Khatami’s attempt to liberalize the government was steadily undone, with opposition newspapers closed and journalists, trade unionists, and student leaders imprisoned for having dared question the authority of the “Minister of Slogans” and other arms of the octopus state. In the authors’ blow-by-blow account, the mullahs emerge as villains through and through, victimizing not only the progressives but also ordinary Iranian Muslims by coveting the power they are supposed to shun. Whether the reform movement is truly dead remains to be seen; though the authors fear that it is, recent newspaper headlines suggest that plenty of Iranians still long for “an Islamic system but one built on social justice and civil liberties” and are willing to fight to bring it about.
A thoughtful, reasoned contribution to the distressing affairs of the Middle East.Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-8050-7299-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
Share your opinion of this book
More by Geneive Abdo
BOOK REVIEW
by Geneive Abdo
by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
Share your opinion of this book
More by Albert Camus
BOOK REVIEW
by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
BOOK REVIEW
by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien
BOOK REVIEW
by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan
by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by Stephen Batchelor
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.