A short, passionate attempt to discern America’s place in God’s ultimate plan.
In her latest book, the main obstacle faced by Townsend (Thine is the Kingdom, 2011 etc.) is one she quite honestly acknowledges right up front: America has no place in biblical prophecy. Nothing even close to a specific allusion to the United States is made in the Old Testament, the New Testament or the Book of Revelation. “I have searched the Bible for some reference of our involvement or some description of a land mass which would describe the United States,” Townsend writes, but “I could not find it.” Townsend overcomes this seemingly insuperable obstacle in the only way possible: She looks to a higher power for additional information. “I dedicate this book to the Holy Spirit of God,” she writes, “who helped me to write it.” Specifically, she went on a four-day fast in 2009 and received “insight from God” about not only America’s role in coming days of tribulation but also in the confused and stressful present. “If we ever needed God to be part of our lives,” Townsend emphasizes, “we really do need His direction now.” There follows a short but systematic and very readable tour through a great deal of biblical prophetic verses, with particular emphasis on the Revelation. There are questionable portions: An “artist’s rendition of ancient ships on the open oceans,” for instance, shows an 18th century sailing vessel, and in a discussion of the prophet John’s ignorance of the existence of North and South America, readers are told: that “John’s whole earth, in reality, is truly only about half of our planet,” when in actual reality North and South America—and Israel—comprise about one-tenth of the planet. Nevertheless, the book’s central thrust is that, assuming we “take back our nation and reestablish the Godly principles we once had,” God has preserved for the United States a role as “the end-time influence.” Christians, at least, will find these extrapolations interesting, especially, of course, American Christians. A concise, fascinating account of a personal revelation of America’s spiritual destiny.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456796570
Page Count: 80
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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
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