Despite the seemingly esoteric topic, the authors skillfully enliven daily life in the distant past, whether detailing...
History of biblical viticulture, from Genesis through the New Testament, and the role wine played in the "evolution of humanity from nomadism to a settled society.”
Butler, one of the first two Masters of Wine in America, and biblical scholar Heskett (Reading the Book of Isaiah, 2011, etc.) meld history with exegesis to trace the origins of wine as a drink initially reserved for royalty; a ceremonial ritual; a key ingredient in early Egyptian medicine; an economic resource contended in wars; a currency for soldiers; a symbol and metaphor for restoration and judgment, noted throughout the Bible in verses and parables that reference vines and vineyards; and perhaps most significantly, as a celebratory, substantial force that enables social and cultural connectivity. The authors also explore Persian, Greek and Roman influences on production methods and taste. Their attentive study of the Levant, the Fertile Crescent, surrounding areas, grape varieties, familiar figures and the international exchange forged through the wine trade amply contextualizes their own tour of wineries along the modern equivalent of the route taken by the apostle Paul during his third missionary journey (excluding a few locales). For the connoisseur, these later chapters provide a refreshing glimpse at contemporary winemakers, which are briefly introduced, along with the authors' assessments and favorites.
Despite the seemingly esoteric topic, the authors skillfully enliven daily life in the distant past, whether detailing amphoras or wine gods—a worthy complement to literature on agriculture in antiquity.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-230-11243-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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