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WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH CALIFORNIA?

Name: WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH CALIFORNIA?
Author: Jack Cashill
ISBN: 978-1-4165-3102-9

CULTURAL RUMBLES FROM THE GOLDEN STATE AND WHY THE REST OF US SHOULD BE SHAKING

by Jack Cashill ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 2007

A jeremiad more fitting to 1967 than 2007.

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A ham-fisted effort to wound liberal sensibilities—or shoot fish in a barrel.

It’s not as if Ann Coulter took a slug of orange juice and a Ritalin and set her sights on the unfortunate Golden State. Cashill (Sucker Punch: The Hard Left Hook That Dazed Ali and Killed King's Dream, 2006, etc.) is more intelligent and sophisticated than that, though there are moments when readers will wonder whether he doesn’t really believe that all Californians are many-times divorced, meth-addled, welfare-cheating or trust-fund layabouts. Granted that California makes an easy target: Satirists from Bret Harte to Cyra McFadden on down have made nice livings pointing out as much. But is John Holmes, the late porn star, really an exemplar of the San Fernando Valley? And granted that Susan Atkins was one of the weirder of the supremely weird people who flocked around Charlie Manson, that the Crips have been performing their mayhem since that annus mansonius 1969 and that Scientologists are spectacularly strange in their own way. But are they really the norm in California? No. For every Tookie Williams there’s a Merle Haggard. Cashill takes at least formal inspiration from Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (2004)—save that he misses the point of Frank’s inquiry, which was why Kansas, with its liberal and even radical tradition, should have turned its back and gone right-wing. California has turned out some notable righties, of course, but its political and social traditions have always been so diverse as to defy categorization. Yet Cashill seems to believe that the wealthy of, say, Marin County should be voting for Bush rather than doing what he claims they do, which is to “wander among the ruins of their imagined paradise and persist in blaming some greedy ‘other’ for its demise,” while Hollywood types should be going to church like good Americans rather than filling their lives with “everything from est to self-actualization to the I Ching.” And so on.

A jeremiad more fitting to 1967 than 2007.

Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2007

ISBN: 978-1-4165-3102-9

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007

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THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WORLD

AS LAID DOWN BY THE SECRET SOCIETIES

by Mark Booth ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2008

As pretentious as it is outlandish, but at least authentically mind-boggling.

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An encyclopedic, lavishly illustrated attempt to discern an alternative-belief system in the broad diversity of ancient paganism and mystical offshoots of the major faiths.

“Christianity contains a hidden tradition of the gods of the stars and planets,” proclaims British publishing executive Booth. While much of this tradition, including biblical allegories, has been denigrated by Mother Church, it has hardly been hidden. The author’s mystical guardian institutions include the Christian-associated Freemasons and Rosicrucians, which both arose at the outset of the 18th century from earlier origins; Cabalism on the Hebrew side; and Sufism from Islam. Much of the problem with this roughly chronological narrative is its hazy documentation: Readers must be content with “a friend of mine” or “an initiate I met” as substantiating sources. Likewise, we must accept Booth’s own innate ability to peer into antiquity and presume the influence of “mystery schools” on such figures as Plato. He seamlessly moves from reportage to proselytizing, presenting for instance a precise date in the 12th millennium BCE as the moment when matter reached its final solidified state in the progression of existence from pure thought (preceding matter itself) through a “human vegetable” state to the present form. Tracing this progression, Booth cites all kinds of permutations, fairy tales and familiar hippie spiritualist icons along the way. Humankind loses its third eye, can no longer directly interact with spirits and deities, must be content with the stifling restrictions of the scientific method to comprehend creation, etc. One culminating highlight: George Washington, a known Freemason, decrees that the capital city be laid out to reflect the geometry of the constellation Virgo, thus inviting “the mother goddess” to participate in determining the future of the United States. Somebody should tell President Bush to please get in touch.

As pretentious as it is outlandish, but at least authentically mind-boggling.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2008

ISBN: 978-1-59020-031-5

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Overlook

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007

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GENERAL HISTORY

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THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN

by Francis Fukuyama ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 22, 1992

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In 1989, The National Interest published "The End of History?" by Fukuyama, then a senior official at the State Department. In that comparatively short but extremely controversial article, Fukuyama speculated that liberal democracy may constitute the "end point of mankind's ideological evolution" and hence the "final form of human government." Now Fukuyama has produced a brilliant book that, its title notwithstanding, takes an almost entirely new tack. To begin with, he examines the problem of whether it makes sense to posit a coherent and directional history that would lead the greater part of humanity to liberal democracy. Having answered in the affirmative, he assesses the regulatory effect of modern natural science, a societal activity consensually deemed cumulative as well as directional in its impact. Turning next to a "second, parallel account of the historical process," Fukuyama considers humanity's struggle for recognition, a concept articulated and borrowed (from Plato) by Hegel. In this context, he goes on to reinterpret culture, ethical codes, labor, nationalism, religion, war, and allied phenomena from the past, projecting ways in which the desire for acknowledgement could become manifest in the future. Eventually, the author addresses history's presumptive end and the so-called "last man," an unheroic construct (drawn from Tocqueville and Nietzsche) who has traded prideful belief in individual worth for the civilized comforts of self-preservation. Assuming the prosperity promised by contemporary liberal democracy indeed come to pass, Fukuyama wonders whether or how the side of human personality that thrives on competition, danger, and risk can be fulfilled in the sterile ambiance of a brave new world. At the end, the author leaves tantalizingly open the matter of whether mankind's historical journey is approaching a close or another beginning; he even alludes to the likelihood that time travelers may well strike out in directions yet undreamt. An important work that affords significant returns on the investments of time and attention required to get the most from its elegantly structured theme.