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Book Reviews
By Olga Bonfiglio [Olga Bonfiglio]
Reviews of books about society, culture, politics, and economics
Articles under this topic: 19
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Thomas Friedman has done it again. The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist has taken a global situation, this time climate change, and set out to educate the public about how we got there and what we can do about it. In his explanation, however, the self-described “somber optimist” inadvertently ends up salving the public with the expectation that technology will save us and we can go on with our lives as usual.
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Published: Apr-27-2009 | Times read: 269 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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In a nation yearning for an election that not only has meaning and substance but breaks through difficult gridlock issues, the Catholic teaching that every person is a sacred image of God entitled to reach his/her full potential provides a highly practical substitute for the “politics of division.”
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Published: Apr-27-2009 | Times read: 179 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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In Left at the Altar, Michael Sean Winters, a political journalist, speechwriter and religion scholar (and blogger for America), traces the history of Catholics’ role in American politics since the 1930s, when they first became aligned with the Democratic Party. He also shows how and why Catholics abandoned the party.
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Published: Apr-27-2009 | Times read: 160 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Although most Americans regard Sept. 11, 2001, as a day that changed the world, the investigative reporter Craig Unger would argue that the presidential election in 2000 served as a point of convergence for certain groups of people who helped create what he calls “the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history—one that could result in the end of American global supremacy.”
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Published: Apr-11-2008 | Times read: 500 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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On Oct. 2, 2006, the unthinkable occurred. Ten Amish girls were gunned down in a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.
A community known for its gentleness, religious faithfulness and rejection of modern technological society had been severely violated. As astonishing as this story was, what followed captured the attention of the country even more. Within six hours of the shooting, Amish leaders reached out to family members of the killer, Charles Carl Roberts IV, and let them know that they forgave him.
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Published: Dec-23-2007 | Times read: 685 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Oct. 7 is the first anniversary of the murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. It is a notable day for her fellow journalists, who admire her courage and commitment to the cause of free speech. It is also a sad day, because it brings to the surface the haunting truth that journalists have become targets for murder in Russia—and all over the world—because transparency and truth have been set aside in favor of security against terrorists and favorable government public relations. In Russia during 2005 alone, 6 journalists were murdered, 63 assaulted, 47 arrested and 42 prosecuted, according to a report by the Glasnost Defense Foundation. Since 2000, when Vladi-mir Putin came to power, 13 journalists have been killed in Russia.
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Published: Dec-23-2007 | Times read: 373 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Why is a 14-year veteran U.S. Marine officer, a Texan, working for Al Jazeera, the so-called terrorist network?
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Published: Dec-23-2007 | Times read: 389 | Rating: 1.00 [Votes: 2] |
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Although the Bush administration has been in a snit about The New York Times’s recent revelations of government spying on Americans and the surveillance of the banking records of presumed terrorists, the president has actually had an easy time of it with the Fourth Estate, according to Eric Boehlert’s "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush".
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Published: Aug-16-2007 | Times read: 497 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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If you ever doubted that one person can make a difference in his or her community, then read this book. It is filled with examples of ordinary citizens who decided to make one small change in their neighborhood and inspired others to join them in making their block a lively and enriching place.
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Published: Aug-16-2007 | Times read: 442 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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At a time when the news is saturated with stories about corporate malfeasance, it is salutary to recall that the corporate quest for profits can sometimes lead to injury and death. In "Five Past Midnight in Bhopal", Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro resurrect the story of Bhopal, India, where in 1984 16,000 to 30,000 people were killed and half a million maimed as the result of a deadly gas leak of methyl isocyanate from a Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing plant. More than a book about the world’s deadliest industrial disaster, the authors have written a dramatic account that elucidates how powerful people use blind faith, neglect and hidden truths against the powerless in order to attain profit and prestige for themselves.
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Published: Aug-16-2007 | Times read: 478 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Editor Philip Zaleski has collected high-minded theology, Weltanschauung wisdom, modern-day parables and morality tales and brought them together in "The Best American Spiritual Writing 2005". This seventh volume of the series, which was first published in 1998, provides good reading for daily prayer and reflection. The book presents readers with the opportunity “to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts,” as C.S. Lewis puts it.
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Published: Aug-11-2007 | Times read: 786 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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As if religion didn’t have enough problems, Sam Harris in The End of Faith condemns the three great Abrahamic religions as the cause of violence and war in the world. A little shocking and indeed offensive to people who try to get through life’s daily trials in a moral and faith-filled way, but an interesting book nonetheless that attempts to address today’s discontinuities between religion and politics.
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Published: Aug-11-2007 | Times read: 467 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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In American Theocracy, which reads like a cross between a mystery novel and a horror film, Kevin Phillips explains how several uncanny political, economic and geographic situations have converged over the past 30 years, bubbled up in September 11 pathos, and allowed the Bush administration the opportunity to pursue a crusade against evil through a war on terrorism, expand executive powers and advance a Religious Right political agenda.
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Published: Aug-11-2007 | Times read: 616 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Kevin Kelly is the editor of Wired magazine and at the center of what's happening in technology. In his book he explains how the new rules of the "network economy" operate and how they are different from the rules of the industrial economy. For example, the character of the industrial economy was a mechanistic, hierarchical, centrally-controlled model of organization. It was run like the military: an individual was able to survive in the organization—and could climb the ladder to more responsibility if s/he produced efficiently. As a reward, the company provided lifetime employment and a high degree of certainty about life in society and one's place in it. The character of our new network economy is that it is an organic, ever-growing, ever-connecting entity—that no one controls. As a result, this new economy is disruptive and out of balance, but it encourages innovation for those who participate in it. Everyone else, however, is left behind.
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Published: Aug-11-2007 | Times read: 437 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Francis of Assisi remains a model for people searching for a life of peace. Spoto’s biography about one of the church’s most popular saints is particularly inspiring because it allows readers to identify with the utter humanity of the man—and for readers to contemplate the struggles and conflicts of our own times.
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Published: Feb-27-2006 | Times read: 517 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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For two centuries Americans have willingly and whole-heartedly embraced a modern life that technology has made possible. As a result, we have enjoyed the benefits of speed, efficiency, and access to an exhaustive supply of consumer products. meanwhile, we are a stressed out, frustrated, and angry people that has become totally dependent on our technology for our everyday lives. People routinely bang on their computers in a way reminiscent of the first Luddites who hammered at the weaving frames of the smoke-belching factories of Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield. Nicols Fox in her book, AGAINST THE MACHINE, provides an astute and highly fascinating account of how we have come to where we are today and what we sacrificed as a result.
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Published: Jan-21-2006 | Times read: 595 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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Bruce Feiler is one American determined to find meaning in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq—and he does it in one of the most dangerous places on earth. Do not hesitate to read this book. Enjoy the beauty of its prose and ponder its messages about the region as a way to improve your understanding about the Middle East and help you reconcile the conflicts among the three great religions. The Middle East is truly a holy land and a place that does not just touch people, but seizes them by the scruff of the neck. <I>Where God Was Born</I> is a guidebook that allows that to happen.
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Published: Jan-21-2006 | Times read: 516 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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WALKING THE BIBLE is good reading for Lent and the Easter season to come. To get an on-the-ground feel for the Holy Land and the high stakes it holds for the world’s three great religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Bruce Feiler’s book is the next best thing to being there.
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Published: Jan-20-2006 | Times read: 539 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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This book explains where we have been and where we are going as a global society. The industrial era of the past provided well-defined boundaries between communities, companies, nation-states, markets, and peoples. The new era of globalization breaks down all of these boundaries and shapes our lives by integrating technology, finance, and information into a single global market. As a result, globalization has created a system that is shaped by superpowers, supermarkets, and super-empowered individuals. In other words, national governments are no longer the key players. And, corporations no longer control markets.
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Published: Nov-15-2005 | Times read: 532 | Rating: 0.00 [Votes: 0] |
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