Those who want to sample the “new mythology” at its source might turn to the works of Helena Blavatsky.
A glib, superficial overview of the protean world of myth and its 21st-century transformations.
This slender volume is based on lectures Leeming (English and Comparative Literature/Univ. of Connecticut; Stephen Spender, 1999, etc.) delivered in the fall of 2000 at New York's Interfaith Center. After an introductory chapter on the relation between myth and religion, Leeming offers chapters on three mythological themes: creation, deity, and the hero. Each of these begins with a selection of brief mythological narratives (many drawn from Leeming's previous works), an analysis of the archetypal patterns the stories reveal, and an interpretation of the archetype, sometimes in the form of a ludicrous fictional gathering of “mythmakers.” Literary examples from writers like Virginia Woolf, Leslie Marmon Silko, and William Carlos Williams illustrate what Leeming takes to be the modern and postmodern remaking of the archetypes. Leeming's analyses rely heavily on Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Mircea Eliade, and share their privileging of Gnostic, esoteric, and Eastern traditions over the Abrahamic exoteric traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There is nary a mention here of any theologian whose idea of God is more robust than Paul Tillich’s; indeed, all such are dismissed repeatedly as fundamentalists. Instead, the Campbellian-Jungian broth is thickened with such trendy and marginally coherent writers as Matthew Fox, Brian Swimme, and Thomas Berry and spiced with murky reflections on the uncertainty principle, the New (actually by now rather old) Physics, and ritualistic obeisances to the virtues of inclusiveness and the wickedness of patriarchy. Very little if any of the serious scholarly work on myth and religion done in the past 50 years (Eliade excepted) seems to have come within Leeming's purview. The writers he is popularizing are mostly accessible, and have been written about extensively by others.
Those who want to sample the “new mythology” at its source might turn to the works of Helena Blavatsky.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-19-514288-8
Page Count: 174
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2001
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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