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Showing posts with the label Israel

MOTHER NIGHT by Kurt Vonnegut

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Originally published in 1962 Mother Night  is one of Kurt Vonnegut's (1922-2007) early novels (his third) and the first that is not a work of science fiction.  The book features Howard W. Campbell, a defendant awaiting trial in Israel for war crimes in Israel. He is wanted for being a well-known voice for the Nazis on broadcasts that he made during World War II.  Campbell freely admits that he did what they say he did, but he does have a defense - he was working as a double agent for the Americans and was passing secret messages during those broadcasts.  The book sets itself up to be a legal thriller - will the hero of the book be saved? Can he prove what he says is true? But, there's none of that in this book. Campbell probably would have been the voice of the Nazis in the broadcasts no matter if he was recruited as a spy or not? He is just a self-absorbed author of plays that was way more concerned about bedding his German wife than politics or any "trivial" things

ARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION to the WORLD'S GREATEST SITES (audiobook) by Eric H. Cline

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  Published in 2016 by The Great Courses. Read by the author, Eric H. Cline. Duration: 12 hours, 37 minutes. Unabridged. Eric H. Cline is a well-respected and highly experienced archaeologist who is a professor at George Washington University. He has excavated at several sites for a total of 30 seasons, doing everything from being an inexperienced newbie to being Co-Director of well-established sites. Turns out that Cline is also a very likable guy who does a good job of explaining archaeological techniques. He tells about a number of sites that he worked on and some of the most famus digs in history (King Tut's tomb, Troy) in the first half of the book. It was a bit frustrating for me because they were all within 100 miles of the Mediterranean Sea.  In the second half of the book, Cline tells about other digs around the world - Machu Pichu, the Terracotta soldiers, Teotihuacan and more.  On the whole, this was a pleasant if not particularly riveting listen as an audiobook. I rate

THE DESIRE of the EVERLASTING HILLS: THE WORLD BEFORE and AFTER JESUS (Hinges of History #3) by Thomas Cahill

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Published in 1999 by Nan A. Talese, an imprint of Doubleday. The Desire of the Everlasting Hills  is the third book in  The Hinges of History Series  by  Thomas Cahill.  It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization.  Nearly 20 years ago I read the is book and the second book in this series,  The Gifts of the Jews   and then parked them on a bookshelf. I never read more books in the series and simply forgot all about them. With the pandemic quarantine came a purging of the bookshelves and these books returned to the to-be-read pile.  Overall, I enjoyed The Gifts of the Jews , despite some slow spots. I had high hopes for this book because I thought it would fit in well with the strongest parts of its predecessor. But, I found this book to be a mostly plodding history with an absolutely excellent and inspiring last chapter attached to it.  And, I have solved the mystery of why I never pursued the rest of the b

THE GIFTS of the JEWS: HOW a TRIBE of DESERT NOMADS CHANGED the WAY EVERYONE THINKS and FEELS (The Hinges of History Series #2) by Thomas Cahill

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  Originally published in 1998 by Nan A. Talese/Anchor Books in 1998. The Gifts of the Jews is the second book in The Hinges of History Series by Thomas Cahill.  It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization.  I read this book when it was first published and I placed it on my shelf and did not touch it for more than 20 years. Over time, I remembered it as  remembered it as a dense tome and continued to keep it on my shelf  as more of a trophy to my ability to read through difficult books than for any desire to go back and consult it or even re-read it. That changed when we stuck at home during the pandemic quarantine and we came to realize that our extensive bookshelves were overwhelmed and a purge was in order. This book was "purged" from the shelves, but went in to my to-be-read pile after I leafed though it. I don't know why I remembered this book as hard to read. Cahill has a real gift for wr

DESTINY DISRUPTED: A HISTORY of the WORLD through ISLAMIC EYES (audiobook) by Tamim Ansary

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Published in 2009 by Blackstone Audio. Read by the author, Tamim Ansary Duration: 17 hours, 28 minutes. Unabridged. Tamim Ansary has done something that is very hard to do - he has written a long history of a complicated topic without making it boring and after more than 17 hours of discussion, he left me wishing that it was even longer. Ansary makes the observation that most histories that people in the West (Western Europe and the Americas) read are written from a Western perspective. That makes sense. But, the history of the world is not just the history of Western Civilization. There are multiple civilizations on the planet. Mesoamerica (the Mayas, Aztecs, Toltecs, etc.) is a separate civilization. China is the historic center of another civilization. So is India. And between the West and India and China is another one. Westerners usually refer to it as the Middle East. This book is a history of that civilization from the beginning of recorded history (empires like Bablyon) to

HOLOCAUST: THE EVENTS and THEIR IMPACT on REAL PEOPLE by Angela Cluck Wood

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Published in 2015 by DK Publishing. Originally published in 2008.  DK Publishing consistently publishes strong "coffee table" type books. This book covers a more serious topic than most of their books, but it is immensely readable and compelling. The text tells the basic history of how the Nazi party took control of Germany, started to implement their anti-Semitic agenda and eventually invaded their neighbors to start World War II. It also tells the story of a series individual Jewish victims as the timeline unfolds. The book doesn't just cover the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, but goes out of its way to include the other victims as well. The liberation of Dachau in April of 1945. This picture appears as a two-page spread in the book.  The pictures are excellent, the text mostly consists of captions for the pictures or a couple of paragraphs that go with the theme of the page. Considering how disjointed this approach usually is in these sorts of books, this

THE GOOD SHEPHERD: A THOUSAND YEAR JOURNEY from PSALM 23 to the NEW TESTAMENT (audiobook) by Kenneth E. Bailey

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Published by Blackstone Audio in December of 2014 Read by Stephen E. Thorne Duration: 10 hours, 5 minutes Kenneth E. Bailey spent more than forty years teaching theology in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus and along the way he developed a natural curiosity about shepherds. This is natural, considering how often shepherds are mentioned and that many of the main figures of the Old Testament were shepherds at one point or another (Abraham, Moses and David to name a few) and that Jesus refers to himself as both a shepherd and a lamb.  Combine that natural curiosity with a willingness to research and the ability to see the stories from a different cultural perspective and you have something new, at least new for those of us in the West.  What Bailey has delivered here is a very readable (or in my case, listenable) overview of the major passages about shepherds in the Old and New Testaments and how they relate to one another and the cultural meanings of these texts and makes t

Iscariot: A Novel of Judas (audiobook) by Tosca Lee

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Published by Simon and Schuster Audio  Published February 5, 2013 Read by Jason Culp Duration: 9 hours, 11 minutes As the title says,  Iscariot: A Novel of Judas  tells the the story of one of the most infamous people in history - Judas, the disciple that betrayed Jesus. Tosca Lee tells the story in a very sympathetic manner. At no point in the story is Judas an evil man. In fact, he is the opposite - he is an exceptionally good man who lives an upright life, tries his very best and truly loves Jesus, the man he calls "teacher." A close up of Judas Iscariot (front) in Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" Tosca Lee creates a sympathetic back story for Judas involving a life full of loss, pain and a tragic multi-generational search for the messiah. Judas has decided that searching for a messiah is the surest way to get hurt. Instead, he has joined a secret society that is working to push the Romans out of Judea. But, things radically change whe

Christians on the Move: The Book of Acts: The Continuing Work of Jesus Christ Through the Apostles and the Early Church (What the Bible is All About Bible Study Series) by Henrietta C. Mears, Bayard Taylor and Dr. Gary S. Grieg

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A Fine Introduction to New Testament History Published in 2012 by Gospel Light Henrietta C. Mears (1890-1963) Part of a larger series of Bible studies based on Henrietta C. Mears' larger book that looks at every book in the Bible,  What the Bible Is All About. This series takes her commentaries and uses them as the springboard for a Bible study. Personally, I did not do the Bible study. I saw the book and thought it would be an interesting look at the early history of the church. I used it as a history and read it the way the original text was intended to be read, although I did glance at some of the Bible study questions from time to time. The text is easy to read and very approachable. The author is good about noting when some areas are a little unsure and gives the reader the most probable answer (for example, it is not entirely clear if Paul worked when he went to a new city to preach, but he probably did based on some of his comments). If there are references to

The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House by Edward Klein

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Published in May of 2012 by Regnery Publishing Edward Klein's The Amateur is reminiscent of the late Andrew Breitbart's vetting of the Barack Obama for the 2012 election. It is a job that many believe should have been done in 2008 but some in the media are finally getting around to it for the 2012 re-election effort. The title of the book comes from an argument between Bill and Hillary Clinton that happened in front of guests at their home in New York in August of 2011. Bill was encouraging Hillary to run for president against Barack Obama because, even after having been in office for 2 and a half years, Bill felt that Obama was still "an amateur." Klein does not wander off into the fringes of this effort to vet the President. There is no "birther" talk or any of that. Instead, Klein interviews nearly 200 people that Barack Obama has worked with over the years. There are interviews with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an historian that was invited to a special

Covenant of War (Lion of War Series #2) by Cliff Graham

Published by Zondervan in March of 2012 348 pages. T here have been plenty of historical fiction books written about ancient wars as of late. Stephen Pressfield's Gates of Fire about the Battle of Thermopylae  or Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series about Julius Caesar come to mind. Bible-based historical fiction about war is pretty rare, however. Cliff Graham has chosen to write about the Old Testament's most complicated and best-documented warrior, David in the Lion of War Series . In Covenant of War , David has just become King of Israel after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. The kingdom is still quite torn and David's control of some areas is in name only. While he is still consolidating his power, the Philistines invade, yet again. Graham has written the book based on the warriors described in 2 Samuel 23 and 1 Chronicles 11. The texts are hardly true histories in the sense that they tell a complete story and there is a lot of detail to fill in to make

Mysteries of the Ancient World by National Geographic Society

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Okay, but disappointing Published in 1979 by National Geographic So, why am I disappointed? I was hoping for an theme-based work that looked at different mysterious objects, behaviors and cultures of the ancient world across the world and made comparisons and connections between them. Easter Island Instead, this book is a series of unrelated articles that have the look and feel of the National Geographic style. Don't get me wrong - I like the National Geographic style but the book as a whole lacks flow and feels more like a copy of the magazine than a special book. It is not an integrated work and leaves out plenty of big mysteries (Great Zimbabwe, Nazca Lines, Petra, the Olmecs) in favor of smaller mysteries such as the Etruscans and Catal Huyuk. Topics include: -The Etruscans -Ice age cave paintings -Stonehenge and related Megaliths -Minoan civilization -Mycenaean civilization -Catal Huyuk and Jericho -Easter Island and the South Pacific Ocean

Palestine: The Special Edition (graphic novel) by Joe Sacco

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An important piece of "comic book journalism" Published in 2007 by Fantagraphics books. 320 pages . Joe Sacco headed off to to the Palestinian refugee camps with a few bucks in his pocket, a sketchpad, a little training in how to draw comic books, a rarely used camera (film was too expensive) and a curious mind. Sacco interviewed Palestinians and asked them about all sorts of aspects of their lives: jobs, the intifada, women's rights, Land for Peace, and much more. Sacco turned those interviews into this graphic novel (although Sacco does not like that term much - instead he prefers "comic book journalist"). Joe Sacco (self-portrait) There is no traditional narrative to this book. Sacco does not turn these interviews into a large over-arching history of the Palestininan people. Instead, it is like reading a series of illustrated interviews. This gives the reader the feeling that he or she is there sitting right there with Sacco talking

After America: Get Ready for Armeggedon by Mark Steyn

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"If something cannot go on forever, it will stop" The above quote is from the economist Herbert Stein. Besides being a clever little bit of the obvious, a Yogi Berra-type quote, it is also part of a scary thought about America itself that Mark Steyn points out in After America - America cannot keep doing what it is doing forever and hope to lead the world - it will stop. It cannot keep  borrow 40% of its budget forever and hope to keep its economy afloat or offer its children a decent future. America cannot hope that a post-America world will be pleasant - as Steyn notes on page 14 "...it's not hard to figure out how it's going to end." After America: Get Ready for Armageddon is really the sequel to America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It a book that details how low birth rates, a general cultural malaise and a nanny state stupor threatens to overwhelm the same countries that once led the world in political, military and cultural might. N

My Glorious Brothers by Howard Fast

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A great piece of historical fiction - strongly recommended Howard Fast (1914-2003) When I teach world history I always give my students a project in which they are to read a piece of historical fiction and do a bit of research. This book is exactly the type of book I recommend for them to read and why I created the project in the first place. My Glorious Brothers is well-written and re-creates a little bit of the historical world for the reader. Set in 2nd Century B.C. Israel, this is a story of national liberation and freedom of religious expression. Many Protestants will be unfamiliar with the Maccabees since Maccabees 1-4 is not included in the Protestant Bible. This book is an ideal place to start to explore that time between the exile in Babylon and the Roman occupation that is featured in the New Testament. The main characters are 5 brothers and their father, descendents of the Tribe of Levi. They refuse to be "civilized" by Hellenized (Greek-i

Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West by Anthony Pagden

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Disappointed Anthony Pagden's Worlds at War: The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West was a book I was really looking forward to reading. It sat on my wish list for months and when I saw it just sitting there at my local library I greedily snatched it up and considered myself lucky to even have found it checked in. Thank goodness I did not waste my money buying it. I suppose the problem with a book of this nature is that it is bound to disappoint - some things will be "too" highlighted, some left out. Even worse for this book, niggling factual errors crop up that bother the careful reader and throw into doubt the validity of the more complicated interpretations of the work as a whole. Positives: The book is quite readable and you must give a tip of the hat to anyone who undertakes such a large and sweeping history. Negatives: The anti-religious comments taint large sections of the book: "...nor have I made any attempt...to disguise

Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco

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I found Sacco's other work Palestine to be much more revealing, balanced and just better I was thrilled to find Joe Sacco had written another graphic novel because I found Sacco's work Palestine: The Special Edition to be a revealing and balanced work that took me into one of those places that everyone has heard of but really knows nothing about. Footnotes in Gaza focuses on a "footnote" in the 1956 Suez War in which Israel, England and France attacked Egypt and Gaza was overwhelmed by the Israeli Defense Forces. There were two civilian massacres of a combined total of 300-400 males of military age, mostly Palestinian, but there may have been a few Egyptian soldiers in civilian clothes in the mix as well. Sacco's artwork remains stark and powerful and unique. No one portrays emotions such as anguish and fear as well as well as Sacco. This work is rambling, nearly 100 more pages than the book "Palestine." It includes dozens of direct quotes

Never Again?:The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism by Abraham H. Foxman

Powerful, important but not perfect. Also - test yourself! Summary of the book: Foxman uses the common comment that the world has learned its lesson during World War II and will "never again" let hate do what it did to the Jews in World War II. He uses a question mark because he points to some rather depressing trends in this well-researched book that mark a rise of anti-semitism throughout the world, even in Japan. (reviewers note: How many Jews actually live in Japan? How many Japanese actually know what the Jewish religion is? I'm assuming this is just a nutball group that hates just about everybody and just threw the Jews in too). Foxman is the head of the Anti-Defamation League, a group based in New York City that monitors Anti-Semitic activity throughout the world. My review: Foxman is a bit too sensitive (something that he admits he is trying to avoid), but he's right,there are terribly disturbing anti-Semitic trends, especially in his chapter 7 con