An eloquent social history of first-century Palestine by Horsley (Religion/Univ. of Massachusetts) and Silberman (The Hidden Scrolls, 1994). As the authors often reiterate, they are historians, not theologians; their goal is not to bolster or debunk the claims of the New Testament, but to contextualize them. They accomplish this by setting the stage of Christian beginnings in the first century, an era of profound social changes, such as escalating tenancy, spiraling indebtedness, and overtaxation by the burgeoning Roman bureaucracy. In Galilee, an obscure outpost of the empire, it became increasingly difficult for Jews to make a decent living (even fishing was transformed in this period from a seasonal, family occupation to a year-round export business, as enthusiasts in Rome developed a taste for the piquant). The region was ripe for social protest, and the authors claim this is how Christianity, ``a movement that boldly challenged the heartlessness and arrogance of a vast governmental bureaucracy,'' began. Jesus, the heart of this movement, constantly challenged Roman rule as illegitimate; the authors persuasively argue that even the ``render unto Caesar'' remark was Jesus' cryptic way of saying that everything belonged to God. The tenor of the movement changed markedly after Jesus' death, becoming more an urban than a rural phenomenon, but even under Paul it remained a social protest. Paul's remarkable missionary success was expedited by audiences' continued discontent with the Roman government, which made the promised immediate demise of all worldly principalities an attractive option. Paul displayed his protest by insisting on equality among persons; he took collections for the poor and even advocated the immediate abolition of the Roman institution of slavery. Paul's ideology was wildly popular, but not with the Roman authorities, who imprisoned him several times and eventually beheaded him for sedition. Stylishly written and rich in memorable detail, this is a rare find that actually offers fresh insight into the overstudied New Testament. (2 maps)
Pub Date: Oct. 13, 1997
ISBN: 0-399-14194-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1997
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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