by Jonathan Sacks ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2015
A humane, literate, and sincere book, one with something truly new to say.
A remarkable exploration of the reasons behind religious violence and solutions for stopping it.
Sacks (The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, 2012, etc.), a British rabbi and member of the House of Lords, tackles one of history’s intractable questions: why have the world’s three monotheistic religions always been in conflict? More importantly, what can be done about it? In the first third of his work, the author uses psychology, sociology, and philosophy to tease out an answer. He explains the problems of altruistic evil and of unrestrained dualism before exploring René Girard’s theories of sibling rivalry, concluding, “[the three religions’] relationship is sibling rivalry, fraught with mimetic desire: the desire for the same thing, Abraham’s promise.” What follows is a fascinating and ingenious reinterpretation of the book of Genesis, with an emphasis on the many sibling relationships in the book. Sacks argues that, repeatedly, Scripture sets up classic mythic scenarios only to foil each expected conclusion with an unexpected reconciliation. He concludes that the whole of Genesis points to a “rejection of rejection,” an affirmation that all people are recipients of God’s love and blessing. This leads to the last and most difficult third of the book, concerning the implementation of this knowledge in solving the problem of religious violence. Sacks notes that seeing the world through the eyes of “the other” is the surest way of creating peace. He also points out the futility of continued hatred and urges others to trust in God’s ability to judge, not in our own. However, some readers may be left wondering how Sacks’ conclusions could ever be seriously heard by the world’s staunchest fundamentalists. Nonetheless, the author has contributed an artful and meaningful work on interfaith dialogue. His treatment of Scripture alone is worth a close read.
A humane, literate, and sincere book, one with something truly new to say.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8052-4334-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Schocken
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
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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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