by George Hassan ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A provocative and spirited critique of Islam undermined by overstatements.
A wide-ranging critique examines Islam, its dominance in Iran, and the threat it poses to the world.
Debut author Hassan grew up in Iran in a Shiite family and has experienced what he considers its despotic indoctrination firsthand. The principal point of his intriguing study is that Islam only disingenuously presents itself as a religion in the traditional sense of the word, and is better understood as a “a set of harsh and punitive laws made by Arabs solely to crush others.” Hassan traverses an impressively broad stretch of historical and theological terrain in order to demonstrate this, beginning with the very genesis of the Muslim faith, the life and times of Muhammad, limning his transition from a “street preacher in Mecca to the emperor of the sword.” The author contends that Islam is “inherently violent,” prone to the tyrannical domination of its members from its inception. He argues for more bellicose interpretations of the meanings of Islam—he prefers “surrender” to “peace”—and jihad. Hassan also dissects the catastrophe of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, and the unfortunate shift from Reza Shah’s modernist reforms to Sharia law’s blinkered prohibitions. The book concludes with a somber warning regarding the imperialist aspirations of Islam, whose advocates wish to export its authoritarian agenda to the Western world: “Once Shari’a, the core of Arab totalitarianism, is put into practice in any nation, its rules and regulations bind that nation to a caliphate system of government that takes away individual freedom and independence and replaces it with a powerful and often tyrannical Arab cleric as ‘caliph for all.’ ” Hassan’s command of the historical and theological materials is notable; his nuanced disentanglement of the Shiite and Sunni Muslim traditions is especially illuminating. In addition, he’s finely attuned to religious hypocrisy, the ostentatious expression of virtue that conceals the practice of vice. The author meticulously exposes the duplicity of the corrupt ruling clerical class in Iran. For example, he destroys the view some have of Mohammad Khatami as a “liberal-minded reformist,” making a persuasive case for his “political belligerence.” But the author too frequently indulges in unrestrained rhetorical hyperbole so intemperate it undercuts his claim to a “rigorous tone and pragmatic style.” For example, surely this is an overstatement: “The world acknowledges that it is next to impossible for a writer or historian to tell the truth in the Islamic world and not literally lose his or her life.” Even the use of “literally” is overkill. Often, the adjective-laden descriptions he employs seethe with anger—he refers to Khatami’s “undefinable barbaric tribal capacity for murder.” Despite the book’s many virtues, it often reads like a rant screamed at readers, which is neither a pleasant nor confidence-inspiring experience; fury and lucidity are rarely fellow travelers.
A provocative and spirited critique of Islam undermined by overstatements.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 241
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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