A moving anthology that proves Tertullian's age-old axiom that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Bergman (Anonymity, 1994) has culled an impressive collection of essays on 20th-century Christian martyrs. The writings are arranged in reverse chronological order, beginning with the 1993 martyrdom of Russian pastor Aleksander Men and closing with the slayings of missionaries during China's 1900 Boxer Rebellion. Along the way, we encounter familiar exemplars, such as Oscar Romero (in a brilliant essay by Carolyn ForchÇ) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as unexpected ones, such as Simone Weil. (Simone Weil a Christian martyr? Anthony Walton makes a strong case for it, though Weil's death from a heart attack hardly compares to the more gruesome ends of the other heroes described here.) Throughout many of the essays, writers mingle themes of social justice and political maneuvering with Christian theology, painting complex portraits of the individuals involved. In one essay, such complexity verges on skepticism. Gerald Early's portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. explicitly compares the famous leader to Uncle Tom, claiming that King ``artfully and brilliantly exploited the Uncle Tom archetype to legitimate his own leadership in the eyes of both black and white America.'' Early's essay also contains no mention whatsoever of King's martyr-death, the focal point on which the other chapters converge. Still, it is a thoughtful piece that forces readers to examine King in a fresh way. Bergman's anthology is not a simplistic glorification of heroic death Ö la John Foxe's Book of the Martyrs. This is grittier. It is an appropriate response to a century in which cataclysmic violence has reached unprecedented proportions. These essays stand as a bold witness to the courage of a few who have sought God in the midst of systematic destruction.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-061120-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2024 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.
bookshelf
