A colorful, exhaustive, occasionally exhausting contemplation of global history’s cavalcade of avatars.
A thesis on how divinity and its varied incarnations have surprised cultures for hundreds of years.
In her debut, Subin, an essayist who studied the history of religion at Harvard Divinity School, takes readers five centuries deep into a survey of (mostly) men who were inadvertently lionized. She first explores a myriad of sanctifications, including figures in the Rastafarian movement of the 1930s and, of course, Christopher Columbus, who was adulated as a “celestial deity.” Especially illuminating is the author’s case study of how Gen. Douglas MacArthur unwittingly became deific throughout four distinct episodes in his military tenure. Subin surmises the military leader became “quadrisected, each quarter experiencing a different way to become fleetingly, precariously divine.” The author also considers French American anthropologist Nathaniel Tarn, who was sainted by conflicted villagers in the highlands of Guatemala in the 1950s. The book tours the “accidental godlings” formed from the glorified doctrines of religious leaders, politicians, dictators, and royal princes while citing numerous references on the ultimate consequences of divine exaltation or the dangers of enmeshing religion and politics. Subin examines how the appearance of fetish idols by European imperialists “integrated into some of the foremost theories of Western modernity” and legitimized conquest, while other forms of deification, particularly involving White authority figures, contributed to early forms of classism, sexism, and racism. In the concluding section, Subin addresses how the very idea of Whiteness became a divine prognosticator: “Race, the scholar-activists remind us, is not only a word but a sentence, of who can live and who will die.” Written in erudite, scholarly prose, Subin’s appreciation for these “gods” is a vibrantly narrated yet overlong text richly embellished with generous illustrations. The author’s exploration captures mortals throughout history who were feted, shaped myths about power and influence, and were startlingly exalted into godly status.
A colorful, exhaustive, occasionally exhausting contemplation of global history’s cavalcade of avatars.Pub Date: Dec. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-29687-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.
A deeply thoughtful exploration of the first book of the Bible.
In this illuminating work of biblical analysis, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Robinson, whose Gilead series contains a variety of Christian themes, takes readers on a dedicated layperson’s journey through the Book of Genesis. The author meanders delightfully through the text, ruminating on one tale after another while searching for themes and mining for universal truths. Robinson approaches Genesis with a reverence and level of faith uncommon to modern mainstream writers, yet she’s also equipped with the appropriate tools for cogent criticism. Throughout this luminous exegesis, which will appeal to all practicing Christians, the author discusses overarching themes in Genesis. First is the benevolence of God. Robinson points out that “to say that God is the good creator of a good creation” sets the God of Genesis in opposition to the gods of other ancient creation stories, who range from indifferent to evil. This goodness carries through the entirety of Genesis, demonstrated through grace. “Grace tempers judgment,” writes the author, noting that despite well-deserved instances of wrath or punishment, God relents time after time. Another overarching theme is the interplay between God’s providence and humanity’s independence. Across the Book of Genesis, otherwise ordinary people make decisions that will affect the future in significant ways, yet events are consistently steered by God’s omnipotence. For instance, Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, and that action has reverberated throughout the history of all Jewish people. Robinson indirectly asks readers to consider where the line is between the actions of God and the actions of creation. “He chose to let us be,” she concludes, “to let time yield what it will—within the vast latitude granted by providence.”
In this highly learned yet accessible book, Robinson offers believers fresh insight into a well-studied text.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780374299408
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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
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