A fascinating and oftentimes mind-bending account of how penny-a-word sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard doggedly pursued the “religion angle” in his quest to create the worldwide Church of Scientology.
Urban (Religious Studies/Ohio State Univ.) makes it clear from the outset that he could have written a lot more about Scientology than he has here—perhaps even a few volumes more. Settling on a narrower scope, however, hasn’t precluded the author from presenting a thoroughly absorbing chronicle of Scientology’s 60-year history in America. Beginning in the 1950s with the creation of the self-help system Hubbard dubbed Dianetics, the narrative quickly moves on to the founder’s audacious attempts to turn Scientology into a bona-fide tax-exempt religion, the incredible covert operations Scientologists launched against snooping federal authorities and the relentless war Scientologists still wage against unflinching critics today. Despite its conservative reputation, Urban believes that ’50s America offered Hubbard a “spiritual marketplace” teeming with new possibilities. It was a time of UFO sightings, the Red Menace and the growing influence of Eastern thought on American culture. Suddenly, there was also room for a man with a trunk full of intergalactic space operas, an abiding fascination in the occult and a talent for synthesizing already popular religious beliefs. All of which compels the author to pose the question: Just what, exactly, is religion and who gets to make the determination? Readers are ultimately left to ponder that question on their own, just as they’re left to wonder what Urban has left out. Esoteric knowledge, meanwhile, has always been Scientology’s stock and trade, but the Internet has largely taken that veil of secrecy and shredded it. That leaves another question to be answered: Does Scientology have a future? An intriguing introduction into the labyrinthine world of Scientology and its meaning in American society. For a more entertaining, behind-the-scenes look, check out Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology (2011).
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-691-14608-9
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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
Hannah Arendt is one of the world's most profound political scientists: her scholarship is sterling, her philosophical- psychological insights staggering; two of her books Origins of Totalitariansim and Human Condition are among the few significant works in her field and our era. Whenever she publishes, it is an event. And although she is not at her best in this close study of the American and French revolutions and their meaning for the 20th century, still on every page we are in the presence of a mind of high individuality, great interest and intellectual integrity. It is her thesis that the Founding Fathers were faithful above all else to the ideal of freedom as the end and justification of revolution and thereby they assured its success. On the other hand, the Rousseau-Robespierre misalliance, the idea of the general will binding the many into the one, the transformation of the Rights of Man into the rights of Sans-Culotte, not only ultimately led to the Reign of Terror but also the whole catalogue of post-1792 ideological corruptions. The malhcurcux became the enrages, then the Industrial Revolution's miserables. And the Marxist Leninist acceptance of the new absolutism, which was done in the name of historical necessity and the name of the proletariat as a "natural" force, subsequently absolved both tyranny and blood baths as stages along the way... A powerful indictment and illumination, both immediate and enduring.
Pub Date: March 15, 1963
ISBN: 0143039903
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1963
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 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.
