Book Description
It is the twenty-third century. On the planet Vulcan, a crisis of unprecedented proportion has caused the convocation of the planet's ruling council -- and summoned the U.S.S. Enterprise™ from halfway across the galaxy, to bring Vulcan's most famous son home in its hour of need.
As Commander Spock, his father Sarek, and Captain James T. Kirk struggle to preserve Vulcan's future, the planet's innermost secrets are laid before us, from its beginnings millions of years ago to its savage prehistory, from merciless tribal warfare to medieval court intrigue, from the exploration of space to the the development of o'thia -- the ruling ethic of logic. And Spock -- torn between his duty to Starfleet and the unbreakable ties that bind him to Vulcan -- must find a way to reconcile both his own inner conflict and the external dilemma his planet faces...lest the Federation itself be ripped asunder.
Diane Duane, author of three previous bestselling STAR TREK novels and an episode of the new STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION® television series, as well as countless other bestselling science fiction and fantasy novels, has crafted a tale of unprecedented scope and imagination, at once a generations-spanning historical novel and a thrilling science fiction adventure.
Customer Reviews:
spock's world.......2006-08-10
this could have been a very interesting book. the concept is intriguing - a general 'star trek' adventure interspersed with a history of vulcan, stretching back to the people's and even the planet's prehistory. yet, it wasn't.
the 'vulcan' interludes are somewhat enjoyable. the 'enterprise' chapters should be, but aren't. a ridiculous crisis somehow engulfes the entire population of vulcan, causing them to consider seceding from the federation. kirk, spock and mccoy of course manage to avert this catastrophic event. the character k's't'lk wants to be more than she is, but is reduced to biting a debate opponent in rebuttal. the enterprise computer, moira, helps save the day. all this alongside a scheme that wouldn't work on the students of a primary school, let alone the inhabitants of the intellectual crown of the 'star trek' universe.
Obviously written by a female.......2005-07-18
When I first started reading "Spock's World," I didn't pay attentnion to the author. But soon into the reading, I came across a sentence that described Jim's thoughts about a certain "handsome" man. I thought it odd for the author to consider Kirk's thoughts concerning the beauty of another man, so I flipped to the cover and discovered that the author was a woman. There's not much to that in itself but (Diane) Duane continually effeminates "Spock's World."
The best example is the Vulcan psyche, which Duane sentimentalizes. Another example of Duane's unorthodox and overall poor grasp of the "Star Trek" tradition is the silly nature imbued within Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. In the story, McCoy, Spock, and Kirk present themselves to a secretary so they may be admited into an assembly hall to speak against "Sessionism." Here, McCoy asks the secretary if a bowl of popcorn may be brought to his seat at the assembly. Kirk follows this joke with one of his own. I did laugh, however, I found the time inappropriate for cheap comedy. Of more reason, Duane continually forces Kirk, McCoy, and Spock, yes, even Spock, to give air to a funny side not yet shown in the "Star Trek" series until now, thankfully so - mostly because Duane's humor was cliche.
These characters of Duane's are her own creation. They are not the "Star Trek" charcters familiar to most readers. The Vulcans are emotional and dramatic, which is the story's main downfall.
Overtaken by canon, but still a good read.......2005-03-09
The people of Vulcan have known the people of Earth for more than a century. The United Federation of Planets, of which both worlds are founding members, has a 75-year history behind it. Apparently the relationships forged between Vulcans and Humans are prospering, with one man - Spock, the first Vulcan/Human hybrid - standing between them as a living symbol. Yet now there's a movement among Vulcans to pull out of the Federation, and it has enough support to force first a planet-wide debate and then a vote. Sarek, Spock's father and Vulcan's long-time ambassador to Earth, goes home to testify...for secession?
This makes no apparent sense, because secession will require Sarek to choose between his Human wife, Amanda, and every other tie he has except the shared one with their son. No non-Vulcan will be allowed on the planet afterward, not even as a visitor; and any Vulcan who insists on continuing to associate with members of other species must do so by going into irrevocable exile. Yet Sarek finds it his duty to testify in favor of secession. Just as James T. Kirk, Dr. Leonard McCoy, and Spock will testify against it. What's going on here?
While a great many of this book's details have been contradicted by canon (filmed Star Trek) since its publication, that needn't stand in the way of a reader's enjoyment. Author Duane has an excellent grasp of the "big three" TOS characters, and her version of Vulcan's history stands well on its own. My only criticism is that I can't imagine how she justifies portraying Sarek, and other Vulcans of his era, in the - well - flagrantly emotional way she writes them. Sarek laughing for an hour over one of Amanda's jokes? That did NOT work for me. At all. I had the feeling that I was reading something by a fan fiction author who didn't like canon and was working hard to fix what she didn't like about it to her own satisfaction.
But that by no means spoils the book. A great read otherwise!
The history of Vulcan.......2004-11-20
SPOCKS WORLD, logically enough, focuses on Vulcan and its citizens. The story shifts through various turning points in Vulcan's history, ranging the 'present day' crisis concerning Vulcan's proposed withdrawal from the Federation to the earliest days of Vulcan prehistory.
The Enterprise crew is called to Vulcan to testify in favor of Vulcan remaining a part of the Federation. Many 'old friends' from both the TV series and previous books are included in this book. Among the more well known are T'Pau and T'Pring as well as Spock's parents, Amanda and Sarek. The real star of this novel is Vulcan itself. We are given much background into the workings of the planet and its society, background that is well thought out, consistent with the original series and immentiently logical.
This is one of my all time favorite Trek novels of any series (of the 100+ I've read so far) and definitely a must for any Trek fan. This one could also be enjoyed by someone with only a passing acquaintence with TOS but would probably not be of much interest to anyone completely unfamiliar with the original series.
Worst Star Trek Novel?.......2004-08-23
I'm a very junior-level Star Trek fan. I've always enjoyed the movies and television series, but I longed for a deeper understanding of the characters and the plots, and I thought that's what the book series would get me. I've read about a dozen so far.
As Spock is my favorite character, I was excited to read this title.
Diane Duane appears to be one of the most prolific formula fiction writers of our time, contributing several novels eachto a few different series before starting one of her own. Quality was apparently overwhelmed by quantity early in her career, as this book leaves the reader with absolute tripe!
I've just forced myself to finish it, and I think I might be demanding my money back. The story is almost incoherent, lost in rambling tangents that add little or nothing to the story. The hardcore fan might find them incredible sources of trivia and background, but a casual fan like me will find them boring and distracting. Worst of all, unrewarding, as dozens of pages of story end without any link to the main story, consequence to its story line or characters, or without any internal resolution, either!
Stripping away these digressions would leave the reader with a book about a third as long, and many times more readable. But it would also help the reader realize that the underlying story (about Vulcan's plan to secede from The Federation) is held together weakly, with holes as big as the great outdoors. The plot twits are poorly planned, weakly executed, and randomizing even against the disarray of the book's twitchy timeline.
Read it if you want to win a trivia contest at a convention. Otherwise, save your free time for a more worthy pursuit.
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Spock's World - Star Trek
Diane Duane
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| Star Trek
| Media
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
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ASIN: B000H5AZ76 |
Book Description
The Middle Kingdom! Various times and peoples have given it different names. To some it was Paradise, to others Tir-nan-Og; Arthurian Avalon; Fairyland; the World of Immortal Youth; the Land of Heart's Desire. Where exactly is that country? Well, if God's is the world of creative power and ours the world of created objects, the fairy world is the land of life that lies between them, serving as the bridge for their interaction.
The fairyland and its denizens have long been the concern of poets, painters, and storytellers. Not only are these beings charged with the maintenance of Nature's household but with her evolutionary plans as well. Our recognition of them and their work helps their efforts prosper and helps the earth be carried forward in its evolution. Marjorie Spock draws aside the veil obscuring the life of the "Little People" and makes their magic world come alive for us.
Included are color paintings of the four races of Little People: Undines or water spirits, Gnomes, the earth spirits, Sylphs, or air spirits, and the Fire-Spirits. This is a delightful and engaging book!
From the Publisher
Dr. Spock's prescription for what ails America and how to restore our basic values.
Book Description
”The letters collected contain an array of opinions about the war, of both the hawk and dove variety. The scores of letters in this collection both praise and vilify Dr. Spock for his antiwar activism.”
—The VVA Veteran
"From thousands of letters written to Dr. Benjamin Spock during the Vietnam War, Foley has carefully culled 218 missives from America's silent majority. . . . Many may find the frustration, fear and grief expressed here newly relevant."
—Publishers Weekly
"These letters—with Michael S. Foley's astute and informed commentary—make clear why and how so many Americans trusted Benjamin Spock. The body politic sorely needs a Doctor Spock today."
—James Carroll, author of Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War
"Foley has discovered a unique source on the American home front during the Vietnam War, a perspective that moves us past the usual images of angry polarization. These powerful letters help us to consider how war-times induce people to look with new eyes at their nation and their government."
—David Farber, author of The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s
"Few documentary collections offer such an immediate connection to the years in which the Vietnam War was fought. Reading these letters now, when the U.S. is once again at war, is a profoundly moving experience."
—Marilyn B. Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990
At the height of the Vietnam War, thousands of Americans wrote moving letters to Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's pediatrician and a high-profile opponent of the war. Personal and heartfelt, thoughtful and volatile, these missives from Middle America provide an intriguing glimpse into the conflicts that took place over the dinner table as people wrestled with this divisive war and with their consciences.
Providing one of the first clear views of the home front during the war,
Dear Dr. Spock collects the best of these letters and offers a window into the minds of ordinary Americans. They wrote to Spock because he was familiar, trustworthy, and controversial. His book Baby and Child Care was on the shelves of most homes, second only to the Bible in the number of copies sold. Starting in the 1960s, his activism in the antinuclear and antiwar movements drew mixed reactions from Americans-some puzzled, some supportive, some angry, and some desperate.
Most of the letters come from what Richard Nixon called the "silent majority"—white, middle class, law-abiding citizens who the president thought supported the war to contain Communism. In fact, the letters reveal a complexity of reasoning and feeling that moves far beyond the opinion polls at the time. One mother of young children struggles to imagine how Vietnamese women could endure after their village was napalmed, while another chastises Spock for the "dark shadow" he had cast on the country and pledges to instill love of country in her sons.
What emerges is a portrait of articulate Americans struggling mightily to understand government policies in Vietnam and how those policies did or did not reflect their own sense of themselves and their country.
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In Celebration of the Human Heart
Marjorie Spock
Manufacturer: Rudolf Steiner Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Theosophy
| New Age
| Religion & Spirituality
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General
| Occult
| Religion & Spirituality
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ASIN: 091678665X |
Book Description
Marcel Gauchet has launched one of the most ambitious and controversial works of speculative history recently to appear, based on the contention that Christianity is "the religion of the end of religion." In The Disenchantment of the World, Gauchet reinterprets the development of the modern west, with all its political and psychological complexities, in terms of mankind's changing relation to religion. He views Western history as a movement away from religious society, beginning with prophetic Judaism, gaining tremendous momentum in Christianity, and eventually leading to the rise of the political state. Gauchet's view that monotheistic religion itself was a form of social revolution is rich with implications for readers in fields across the humanities and social sciences.
Life in religious society, Gauchet reminds us, involves a very different way of being than we know in our secular age: we must imagine prehistoric times where ever-present gods controlled every aspect of daily reality, and where ancestor worship grounded life's meaning in a far-off past. As prophecy-oriented religions shaped the concept of a single omnipotent God, one removed from the world and yet potentially knowable through prayer and reflection, human beings became increasingly free. Gauchet's paradoxical argument is that the development of human political and psychological autonomy must be understood against the backdrop of this double movement in religious consciousness--the growth of divine power and its increasing distance from human activity.
In a fitting tribute to this passionate and brilliantly argued book, Charles Taylor offers an equally provocative foreword. Offering interpretations of key concepts proposed by Gauchet, Taylor also explores an important question: Does religion have a place in the future of Western society? The book does not close the door on religion but rather invites us to explore its socially constructive powers, which continue to shape Western politics and conceptions of the state.
Customer Reviews:
New and captivating ideas about our past.......2006-02-05
French thought, killed by Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and the Postmodern gang, appears resurrected by the likes of Gauchet. In physics the most deeply piercing ideas are the simplest, and in the form of seemingly unrelated phenomena - gravity seen as geometry for example. Gauchet's ideas are like this. "Disenchantment" is emphatically not a political history of religion alone, but much more - a perspective on the development of ideas, civilization and human thought.
Gauchet practices the tradition of substantive history Postmoderns "failed to extinguish". However, like lawyers and their guarded legalese, sociologists have their own vocabulary that could be rendered simple but isn't. In keeping with this tradition Gauchet includes every idea and caveat under the sun by a single period. Destined never to be a best seller, obtuse, bloated lines or paragraphs require multiple re-readings but efforts receive magnificent rewards for insights found nowhere else.
The State is the first religious revolution in history, claims Gauchet. Per Gauchet the original religion - before advent of the city - intended "to preserve their inviolable legacy, repeating their sacred teaching". But structurally the State comes with a hierarchy between people and their gods, some closer than others. "The gods withdraw and simultaneously the nonquestionable becomes questionable, affirmed by the hold humans have on the organization of their own world." "The imperial ambition to dominate the world comes with the [advent of] the State", bringing upheaval to man's unchanging position in the world. "The power of a few individuals to act in the name of the gods is the barely perceptible, yet irreversible step toward everyone having an influence on the god's decrees... The State ushers in an age of opposition between social structure and the essence of [religion]. Political domination, which decisively entangles the gods in history, will prove to be the invisible hoist lifting us out of the religious." Opportunities to depart from previous religious ways presented themselves. Unavoidable questions arose concerning our fate, the search was on, each for themselves, fractured compared to what began as unquestioned practice of one's place in the cosmos. As Gauchet notes with "disenchantment" (leading to our loss of roll in god's creation dictated by the social structure) humans become more autonomous but contradictions arise; the promise of eternal life, but also of life's renunciation (to inhance our image of the next); our promise justified by the god's will, separate from that god, but desirous of fusing with that god. Religion's decline is paid for by the difficulty of individuation. The greater our degree of individuation, the greater our problem of self, the greater interest in past eras when one need not deal with uncertainties this new way provided. What is now experienced as problematic, spiritual systems experienced as resolved.
The State's development, says Gauchet, is responsible for the so called Axial Age when all the world's religions from Near East to Far East sprang forth by concepts emergent from circumstances of the State. "Higher religions" of the Axial Age sought to unify their nature via supreme transcendent principles - a superior God, Order, Idea. Ideas beyond mere order in life and no longer as self-evident as simply taking one's place, repeating old rituals. One eventually must seek this higher reality via devotion / revelation (Near East) or understanding / enlightenment (Far East) - the conception moment of individuation.
Gauchet notes monotheism first invented by Akhenaton was on track with what had been taking place in Mesopotamia via Assyria and Babylon as Assur and Marduk were ethical superiors to their pantheon, tending to simplify it. However, the critical difference of Israelite's god was not based on the old ancestral order but on a commitment to his saving intervention - as Israel did, after all, lay between the most powerful forces on earth, thus creating something new out of an extreme social need to dominate what dominated them. Once established by the prophets who sound a good deal like lobbyists, there developed clarity of Judaism's internal contradiction - a universal God exclusively for but one of his creations. At the height of human evisceration and unsettling of the Roman Empire - like Brooks Adams' 1896 illuminating "Law Of Civilization And Decay" - Christianity responds with its own conceptual twist. Jesus is of God, maintaining that link as before, but God is now for all people, not one group alone. "We are not dealing with a challenge to reason, but to the logic of a cultural system," writes Gauchet, and only contradiction could supply the required response, leading people not to a terrestrial promised land as Moses had, but removing them spiritually from it while remaining bodily engaged in the suffering of life. A creative solution to another contradiction in empire between its inherited religious order of the old ways still present and the actual system of domination.
According to Gauchet, this separation and eviction of God from nature transforms everything that humans had held against themselves to maintain permanent identity with the past into a reversal of unrestrained action against everything around them. The old way submerged human order in nature's order, feeling at one with nature, a co-belonging so strong any damage done required ritual compensation restoring the balance. Nature becomes opposed and possessed in a renunciation of this world in the name of the other. God, having been made external to the world, the world then became external to humans. As God was withdrawn, our perception of "the world changed from something unalterable to something to be constituted." A full turn about occurs, from domination of people to the domination of nature. (Hence our current worldwide environmental decline, the Far East only mimicking Western process without the belief system.) Though it could use more reference to historical evidence a remarkable book.
one of the major books of the eighties in France. Secularisa.......1999-01-07
This book was published already in 1985 in France and has had an significant influence in intellectual circles. The main argument of Gauchet is that secularisation of society (the word "désenchantement" directly refers to Max Weber's Entzauberaung) is both rooted in christianity and a process against christianity. The christian religion, by laying down the ground for it, made it possible for modern societies (say, after 1789 in France and continental Europe) to abandon heteronomia (government of the society and of the self by an external authority, beit God, tradition, etc...) and to swich to autonomia (in the kantian sense, this is the self government of the individual and of society). Gauchet recently (1998) published a short book on the same theme, La religion dans la démocratie (Ed. Gallimard).
Although I quote the theme of the book under "secularisation", Gauchet rejects this concept, precisely because it is too much influenced by the religious "Weltanschauung". He rather speaks of "la sortie de la religion" (the exit of religion). I would say that this book is the book of an anthropologist of Wertern societies rather than of an historian or a philosopher.
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Disenchantment
C. E Montague
Manufacturer: Chatto & Windus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
| World War II
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B00089LA2A |
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The Disenchantment of the Orient: Expertise in Arab Affairs and the Israeli State
Gil Eyal
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Asia
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ASIN: 0804754039
Release Date: 2006-05-08 |
Book Description
What role do the experts on Arab affairs play in Israeli society? How do they mediate between Israelis and their neighbors? And what role has expert knowledge and discourse played in bringing Arab and Jew together and in separating them?
In this historical study, Gil Eyal argues that before the formation of Israel, Jewish experts participated in constructing the Orient as both a metaphor for the rejuvenation of the Jewish nation, and an enchanted space populated by hybrid figures that mixed Jewish and Arab elements. But following the creation of the state, these experts took up a new role: creating boundaries (both external and internal) between Jews and Arabs, purifying the hybrids that inevitably exist on the margins of boundaries. The enchanted space of the Orient was destroyed, and its place was taken by expert discourses that reinforce the cultural separation between Jews and Arabs.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Theological Studies, published by Theological Studies, Inc. on September 1, 1998. The length of the article is 760 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion.
Author: Paul J. Fitzgerald
Publication:
Theological Studies (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 1998
Publisher: Theological Studies, Inc.
Volume: v59
Issue: n3
Page: p548(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Algeria 1960: The disenchantment of the world, The sense of honour, The Kabyle house or the world reversed (Studies in Modern Capitalism)
Pierre Bourdieu
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Economics
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| Agricultural
| Commercial Policy
| Comparative
| Consolidation & Merger
| Cooperatives
| Debt & Deficits
| Development & Growth
| Econometrics
| Economic Conditions
| Economic History
| Economic Policy & Development
| Exports & Imports
| Free Enterprise
| Inflation
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| Money & Monetary Policy
| Natural Resources
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General
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General
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ASIN: 0521220904 |
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