Boyce successfully illustrates the ability of original sin to dominate Western culture for nearly two millennia.
Intriguing study of how the Christian concept of original sin weaves its way through Western history.
Boyce (1835: The Founding of Melbourne & the Conquest of Australia, 2012, etc.) sets out “neither to defend nor condemn the Western creation story, but to show that its influence was not ended by science and secularism.” He does so successfully. The author begins with an interpretation of the creation story found in Genesis, which was given voice especially by the fourth-century theologian Augustine. Boyce begins with Augustine, laying the groundwork for an understanding of human nature that permeates to the present day. The author points to a number of dissenting voices—the Pelagian heresy, Celtic Christianity—that eventually gave way to the prevailing Catholic view of the inherited sinful nature of all humanity. Even during the Protestant Reformation, Boyce explains, original sin flourished in the legacy of John Calvin, among others. Moving on, Boyce argues that as the Enlightenment fundamentally changed the West’s views on faith, original sin nevertheless remained as a core understanding of basic human nature. “Original sin was not only a religious dogma,” he writes. “It also supplied a framework in which to understand what it meant to be human.” While thinkers such as David Hume, Adam Smith, and James Madison may have given faith a secondary place, they all saw human nature as fundamentally corrupted and believed society had to be built on that premise. With the advent of capitalism, modern democracy, and evangelical Christianity, original sin was set to play a continuing role into the 21st century. Boyce covers a lot of ground and explores a number of authors in this wide-ranging treatment, and the result is impressive. Readable and comprehensive, the book provides worthwhile food for thought.
Boyce successfully illustrates the ability of original sin to dominate Western culture for nearly two millennia.Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61902-498-4
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
bookshelf
