Amazon.com
Author Simon Weisenthal recalls his demoralizing life in a concentration camp and his envy of the dead Germans who have sunflowers marking their graves. At the time he assumed his grave would be a mass one, unmarked and forgotten. Then, one day, a dying Nazi soldier asks Weisenthal for forgiveness for his crimes against the Jews. What would you do? This important book and the provocative question it poses is birthing debates, symposiums, and college courses. The Dalai Lama, Harry Wu, Primo Levi, and others who have witnessed genocide and human tyranny answer Wiesenthal's ultimate question on forgiveness.
Book Description
While imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, Simon Wiesenthal was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated, the soldier wanted to confess to--and obtain absolution from--a Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal said nothing. But even years after the way had ended, he wondered: Had he done the right thing? What would you have done in his place?
In this important book, fifty-three distinguished men and women respond to Wiesenthal's questions. They are theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China and Tibet. Their responses, as varied as their experiences of the world, remind us that Wiesenthal's questions are not limited to events of the past. Often surprising and always thought provoking,
The Sunflower will challenge you to define your beliefs about justice, compassion, and human responsibility.
Customer Reviews:
Gets you thinking.......2007-08-25
A wonderful short story of 100 pages, written very well. The opinions of all the commentators afterwards on Wiesenthals dilemma is very intriguing. This book gets you involved, and could be the best book ever written on the topic of forgiveness. You just can't help but think deeply about the author's decision to forgive, and also about forgiveness in your own life.
Wonderful book!.......2007-08-13
This book is a must for anyone who wants to understand the mortal dilemas which affected those who suffered so much from the violence of the holocaust. Amazing that ther author was able to retain his huaminity in the face of such evil, and a testament to his moral character.
The Sunflower.......2007-02-19
This book focuses on a cogent question by way of a true story and invites response from all sorts of people with pertinent experience, providing biographies of these respondents. The topic is forgiveness. I found the analysis by Dennis Prager, an L.A. talk show host, the most understanding of Christian/Jewish outlooks and Jose Hobday's perhaps the best of the Christian contributions. I am eager to discuss it with members of my theology group.
A must read on forgiveness.......2007-02-14
The title of the book comes from the tall, bright sunflowers placed upon the German soldier's graves who are buried just outside the concentration camp where the Jewish prisoners must pass daily on their way to work projects. Each grave had one "as straight as a soldier on parade . . . . " The tall golden flowers stand in contrast to the unmarked, unidentifiable mass graves, in which most of the prisoners will end up
.
This revised edition was issued in honor of the twentieth anniversary of its publication. It is divided into two sections: an extraordinary request to Simon for forgiveness by a dying 21 old SS man and the 53 responses (ten from the original volume) from prominent theologians, political leaders, writers, jurists, psychiatrists, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, and victims of attempted genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, China, and Tibet. Their answers reflect the teachings of their diverse beliefs - Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, secular, and agnostic - and remind us that Wiesenthal's question is not limited to events of the past. Certainly there are fundamental lessons that are as essential today as they were 60 years ago.
Who can forgive crimes committed against others asks Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most significant Jewish theologians of the 20th century.
Are there any similarities between the national guilt faced by the German people for the Holocaust and ours for the institution of slavery and the genocide of Native Americans wonders Martin E. Marty, religious scholar and Lutheran Pastor.
Are followers in committing atrocities as guilty as their leaders inquires Dith Pran, photographer and subject of the film, "The Killing Fields," about Cambodian genocide.
Is silence its own answer if we could but learn to listen to it? Are there questions that are unanswerable queries of the soul, matters too awe-full for human response, too demonic for profound rational resolution poses Hubert Locke, Dean Emeritus, Evans School of Public Policy, University of Washington
By not forgiving do we somehow remain victims wonders Harold Kushner, Rabbi and best-selling author.
One day as part of a detail working at a hospital, Simon it taken by a nurse to see a dying young SS officer named Karl Seidl, who wants forgiveness and absolution from a Jew for the terrible things he had done, in particular an incident in which he murdered 150 Jewish men, women and children who were herded into a small house that was set on fire and when those trying to escape or jump to safety were all shot. Simon has no answer and leaves. He refuses a package of clothing the officer wants him to have telling her to ship it to the deceased's mother.
During the next two years, Wiesenthal shared this story with fellow camp mates, ending each time with: Was my silence at the bedside of the dying Nazi right or wrong?
After the war, Simon visits the officer's mother living in a bombed-out apartment in Stuttgart. All she has left are the memories of her "good son." Wiesenthal wrestles with whether he should tell her the truth about her son, but leaves saying nothing about the atrocities he took part in. She is allowed to keep her memories.
Simon addresses the reader with this critical question: "You, who have just read this sad and tragic episode in my life, can mentally change places with me and ask yourself the crucial question, 'What would I have done?'"
Simon Wiesehthal died on September 21, 2005 at the age of 96. He and his wife Cyla lost 89 relatives during the Holocaust. Simon helped to bring more than 1100 war criminals to justice, including Eichmann, Stangl, and the Nazi who took Anne Frank from her home and sent her to her death. He has been honored with numerous awards for his work, including "Commander of the Order of Orange" in the Netherlands, "Commendatore della Repubblica" in Italy, a gold medal for humanitarian work by the United States Congress, the Jerusalem Medal in Israel, and sixteen honorary doctorates. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, located in Los Angeles, is named in honor of him.
The Sunflower will force you to think deeply about issues we rarely discuss but which are essential to building and maintaining relationships, with each other and with ourselves.
Beautiful, horrifying and sad, but beautiful........2006-12-14
I didn't read this book so much as experience it. Not meant, I think, to be read from cover to cover in a sitting, but to be reflected over - or if you are like me, pondered for a long time after. I thought I could define forgiveness until reading this; I was wrong. it's many things to different people. I guess that I am in the same camp as those writers who subscribed to the idea that it is a rank act to pontificate about what a man in Simon Wiesenthal's position should have done. Most of the contributors transcended "preachiness", however, and have shared their ideas with compassion, anger and insight.
A wonderful, truly worthy read.
Book Description
The rise of China as a great power is one of the most important developments in the twenty-first century. But despite dramatic economic progress, China's prospects remain uncertain. In a book sure to provoke debate, Minxin Pei examines the sustainability of the Chinese Communist Party's reform strategy--pursuing pro-market economic policies under one-party rule.
Pei casts doubt on three central explanations for why China's strategy works: sustained economic development will lead to political liberalization and democratization; gradualist economic transition is a strategy superior to the "shock therapy" prescribed for the former Soviet Union; and a neo-authoritarian developmental state is essential to economic take-off. Pei argues that because the Communist Party must retain significant economic control to ensure its political survival, gradualism will ultimately fail.
The lack of democratic reforms in China has led to pervasive corruption and a breakdown in political accountability. What has emerged is a decentralized predatory state in which local party bosses have effectively privatized the state's authority. Collusive corruption is widespread and governance is deteriorating. Instead of evolving toward a full market economy, China is trapped in partial economic and political reforms.
Combining powerful insights with empirical research, China's Trapped Transition offers a provocative assessment of China's future as a great power.
Customer Reviews:
highly intelligent in-depth analysis.......2007-09-04
I am not a political scientist, economist or expert on China, and I found this book quite clear and understandable. It is a highly intelligent, in-depth and convincing analysis of China as a dysfunctional, 'predatory' state. It is highly unlikely it will evolve in positive directions of increasing democracy. While it may collapse, the future may instead be that of a corrupt, stagnating failed state which exports its problems to the rest of the world - failure to control drugs, arms sales to dangerous regimes, aids, illegal immigration, etc etc. An important antidote to all the self-serving business propaganda on China's economic miracle.
An Unscholarly Book.......2007-07-06
While the writing in this book is quite smooth, it by no means is a scholarly work (though in the guise of scholarship). The author picks and uses data and evidence that only fits his/her own political/ideological (rather than theoretical) framework, and ignores those that have been well researched and documented. In addition, most works--theoretical or empirical--cited this book is quite obsolete (except those from the internet, which tended to be superficial), even though more up-to-date and important scholarly works were already available in the body of the literature. For example, well before the book was published, there were already new, major findings about Chinese people's support for the government and democratization, and their political participation in both rural and urban settings. But the author totally ignored these new findings, probably because these findings were not very convenient to his/her political/ideological framework. More disappointingly, the book is full of the ideology/emotion-charged, groundless, and arbitrary statements (or beliefs) that you should never see in scholarly works. In short, this book has decisively departed from scholarly or scientific inquiry.
A Great Resource.......2006-12-07
Pei is well known is his field for writing about the political divide between the CCP and the Chinese people. This book does an excellent job in covering the realities of the economic and political situations within China. The vast majority of the book is actually quite an easy read, but the beginning of the book can be challenging for those that aren't use to conceptual models (hence 4 stars).
I highly recommend that those interested in China read this book. While I do not agree with specific points, Pei's general ideas are sound and provide lots to think about. China's government (read the CCP) must withdraw from the market if the economic reforms laid down by Deng Xiaoping are to continue and be successful. However, as Pei points out, by withdrawing from the markets, the CCP will lose a lot of its hard power.
Academic's trapped mentality: The limits of linear ideology.......2006-07-06
Reading this book is almost like reading "China's democratic future" all over again. It is all too familiar how normative idealism ruins positive analysis in these two books. The difference is: this one is disguised by more theoretical tools, the other one was an outright shout for a democratic China.
Democracy is a beautiful linear process that can be attributed to "growth determinism". Once the per capita income reaches $1000, then just "smile, you are on candid camera". The development theory is summarized by Pei as all about how growth determines democratization, and the evidence of growth not causing democracy is easily dismissed by seeing it as a short term phenomenon (rising prosperity makes political monopoly more valueable). If this logic is valid, one can also argue that the state's decentralized corrupted "grabbing hand" can also be a short term phenomenon for the long term reform. It's all about your starting point of analysis.
The pre-determined linear ideology of Pei leads to another glaring flaw: he fails to analyze the cause of democracy, as if what appears to be a correlation between growth and democracy is the causation. Douglass North is frequently quoted in this book, yet the major feat of North is: he starts with the cause of economic growth, not a linear ideology from the "prison of one culture". Given this, the discussion of gradual reform and shock therapy is a "fake issue" and a major distraction. More important, "trapped transition" is more a normative tautology than a useful analytical concept. When Pei wears a pair of dark glasses with an idealistic picture in mind, what else can he see except problems? What else can readers experience except his troubled mentality in dealing with China's achievements and problems (the whole book simply boils down to an ad hoc pattern of "on the one hand...on the other hand...")? As for the critical question on "why China is doing great if everything is really so dark?" Pei brushed aside the challenge with only a few paragraphs of guessing work. If one uses John Rawls' "justice principles" for the reality in the US, he can also argue what we see is a "trapped democracy" which is "for the few people, from the few people, and by the few people". And he can also get a reviewer to hail "trapped democracy" as a new concept for the satisfaction of self-congratulation.
Put it simply, when the target of analysis is totally Chinese, Pei is still obsessed with "Leninism" and the cold war ideology. As a Chinese, he didn't even talk about Chinese culture; as a US educated, he failed to start from the realistic perspective of "public choice" (rather than use it selectively to support his normative conclusion). If social scientists are all moral scientists, you think all research can still be fun?
It is really sad to see another serious Chinese scholar again fell into the one culture linear ideological trap. Assuming this book starts with the cause and reason of democracy, with the employment of available theories and a peaceful mind of multi-culturalism, we might see more fruitful results. One quick example is to analyze how each reform approach is actually structured by the contextual reality and how the state evolves and functions as a grabbing hand or a helping hand (instead of asserting gradual reform leads to a predatory state, which is nothing more than an ad hoc analysis); Other questions can be asked include: Are those "copy and paste" democracy (Taiwan, Mexico, the Philippines, India) and "plug and play" democracy (Iraq) actually doing well in economic growth and government cleanness? What is really beyond the simple installation of democracy? Will culture fail in "making democracy work"? What is behind the actual enforcement of democratic institutions?
The development of cognitive science and cultural psychology may be helpful for being self-conscious of the intellectual thinking trap, but the reality of research sociology may not be really in accord with a more sensible research direction. I wish I am wrong on this.
A book for those who actually know the ABCs of China.......2006-05-03
For those who's never been to China or lived there, this book might be a little out of their scope. Afterall, the only things you hear in the news are how if Walmart were a country, it'd be China's 7th biggest trading partner, or how Intel is building their fabs in China (away from Shanghai towards inland to further reduce cost). For those people, go read on how China will take over the world economically by the middle of this century and believe what you want.
For those who Does have any clue about China's political system is keenly aware that the entire Chinese economy is still tied into the political system, and that is just a time bomb waiting to explode. If the CCP were to collapse, half of the country's wealth will be exported and rest will go down with the defunct banking system. This book digs into the depth of the current geo-political situation, and is so accurate that the People's Congress is taking note and implementing changes (albeit slowly) previously pointed out by the author. If you want to know the REAL story behind the Chinese economic system and where it'll truely head in the next several decades, this is THE book to read. Not some "economic model that projects blah, blah, blah and threaten's US's position in the world," where the author is totally cluelss of all fundamentals of the Chinese economy other than published economic numbers.
Average customer rating:
- Disappointing
- Jean Amery, the thinker, makes one think
- An extraordinary meditation on catastrophe.
- One to return to
- haunting human analysis...
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At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and its Realities
Jean Amery
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
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ASIN: 0253211735 |
Amazon.com
Because Auschwitz was among the most brutal of the concentration camps, ruled by capricious, pure force and not by any discernable political or social structure, the intellectual there "was alone with his intellect ... and there was no social reality that could support and confirm it." In other words, there was no place for the intellect to act, outside of the confines of a person's own skull. Jean Amery's At The Mind's Limits is a focused meditation on the position of the intellectual placed in "a borderline situation, where he has to confirm the reality and effectiveness of his intellect, or to declare its impotence: in Auschwitz." In the camp, Amery writes, "The intellect very abruptly lost its basic quality: its transcendence." Considering this loss, Amery describes his own experience of torture, his reactions of resentment, anger, and bitterness, his loss of any vital sense of metaphysical questions, and his search for some way to maintain moral character and Jewish identity in the absence of such consciousness. --Michael Joseph Gross
Customer Reviews:
Disappointing.......2006-10-18
Amery did not only pick up a new French-sounding name, but (although this book was originally written in German) apparently also the circumlocutionary style of the French. If you like a book full of idle verbiage, with arguments beginning nowhere and leading nowhere, and references to passé writers such as Sartre, then this book is for you.
But it's not merely the style that I disliked. All essays (rants, more like) gravitate around Amery's pathological hate for all Germans, past and present. All Germans, except for some four individuals he mentions by name, are inherently bad. Nazis all of them, and torture is the essence of their being. Amery is dissatisfied with the world, because after the war, Germany was not permanently turned into a potato patch as the Morgenthau plan had envisaged it. A typical only child, Amery seems to think that the world should turn around his personal sufferings and frustrations. He hardly ever speaks of his fellow prisoners, and if he does, he belittles them because they are not interested in, let alone able to quote Liliencron or other poets Any Intellectual Should Know. Finally, as could be expected, the post-war generation of Germans is bad, because they do not want to permanently crawl in the dust before Amery.
I regret having spent money on this book.
Jean Amery, the thinker, makes one think.......2006-03-13
Of all the Holocaust books, this book stands above the rest, with the content focused not on the gory details of Nazi atrocities (which are by themselves worth reading if you want to validate the experiences of those who suffered), but rather on the psychological implications of being a victim. Only books by Primo Levi contain this degree of depth of thought and introspection.
An extraordinary meditation on catastrophe........2005-10-24
Prior to reading Amery's book, I thought of myself as thoroughly read in what one French scholar has called "the writing of the disaster," but Amery's may be among the half dozen essential texts in the now overwhelming body of Holocaust literature. A profound meditation on language, on mind, and on disaster in the 20th century.
One to return to.......2005-08-11
Ever since writing a term paper on Amery's "At the Mind's Limits", I have continuously come back to this work. There is a lifetime's worth of contemplation to survey here, not that this is an autobiography or even a complete memoir, but the years of his life on which he writes and the experiences dissected provoke a lifetime's worth of questions, mostly unanswered.
I think of this work as a distinct and great existential accomplishment. It provokes the reader to empathize while simultaneously making him question or even feel guilty for such empathy. How can an intellect, in the modern west at least, empathize with one who has experienced dehumanization to such an unimaginable degree? The short answer is that to try to do so is impossible and even probably detestable, morally speaking.
But isn't the motivation of Amery's expression the prevention of such dehumanization in future? And isn't such prevention dependent on empathetic attempts at least (among other things)?
These are unanswerable contradictions for the reader. But the introspective applications make this a necessary book to read over and over again.
haunting human analysis..........2002-11-18
This man, who lived caught between paralyzing fear and paralyzing anger, refuses to countenance the immoral world he found so horribly crude, ignorant and inadequate. I know of no more unrelenting self-criticism or self-asceticism than portrayed here in this work.
Every "outsider" will recognize immediately that the author talks to him/her. No matter by what standard one is taken as an outsider, here is a priceless analysis of your experience, writ humbly, clearly and painfully.
Every "moralist" will recognize immediately the accusations the authors aims in your direction with too-precise accuracy that will not allow you to wriggle free of the dread implications.
Every "religionist" will recognize the futility of responding in comforting platitude to the undeniable evidence of evil writ hugely in this thin volume.
I know of few intellectuals who will receive the meaning of this work with welcome. To almost all others, it will be set aside with well-explained rationalizations...
But for the reader who knows what "outside" means, what "cataclysm" means, and what "torment" of any stripe whatsoever means, then here you will find a comrade. Here you will find words of encouragement to struggle on...your lot is not as bad as it could be, after all...for here we find our comrade who has endured to the very limits of the mind. And survives, with bright intellect intact and sharp. Uncomfortably so.
A note on the "Auswitz" in the title--Don't allow this word to dissuade you from the universal human experience that is the focus of this work. Any and every human being can take an enhanced image of life and world from this resource.
Book Description
"We fail to mandate economic sanity," writes Garrett Hardin, "because our brains are addled by...compassion." With such startling assertions, Hardin has cut a swathe through the field of ecology for decades, winning a reputation as a fearless and original thinker. A prominent biologist, ecological philosopher, and keen student of human population control, Hardin now offers the finest summation of his work to date, with an eloquent argument for accepting the limits of the earth's resources--and the hard choices we must make to live within them. In Living Within Limits, Hardin focuses on the neglected problem of overpopulation, making a forceful case for dramatically changing the way we live in and manage our world. Our world itself, he writes, is in the dilemma of the lifeboat: it can only hold a certain number of people before it sinks--not everyone can be saved. The old idea of progress and limitless growth misses the point that the earth (and each part of it) has a limited carrying capacity; sentimentality should not cloud our ability to take necessary steps to limit population. But Hardin refutes the notion that goodwill and voluntary restraints will be enough. Instead, nations where population is growing must suffer the consequences alone. Too often, he writes, we operate on the faulty principle of shared costs matched with private profits. In Hardin's famous essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons," he showed how a village common pasture suffers from overgrazing because each villager puts as many cattle on it as possible--since the costs of grazing are shared by everyone, but the profits go to the individual. The metaphor applies to global ecology, he argues, making a powerful case for closed borders and an end to immigration from poor nations to rich ones. "The production of human beings is the result of very localized human actions; corrective action must be local....Globalizing the 'population problem' would only ensure that it would never be solved." Hardin does not shrink from the startling implications of his argument, as he criticizes the shipment of food to overpopulated regions and asserts that coercion in population control is inevitable. But he also proposes a free flow of information across boundaries, to allow each state to help itself. "The time-honored practice of pollute and move on is no longer acceptable," Hardin tells us. We now fill the globe, and we have no where else to go. In this powerful book, one of our leading ecological philosophers points out the hard choices we must make--and the solutions we have been afraid to consider.
Customer Reviews:
Spaceship economics and other interesting concepts........2007-07-02
The problem of population is one of regulating human behavior. He explains several concepts:
1- Cowboy vs spaceship economics.
2- The Malthus demostat.
3- Exponential growth at a small rate and the carrying capacity of Planet Earth
4- Our world is finite
5- There will never be a perpetual motion machine
A great thinker on ecology and human population.
A marvellous book distinguished by Hardin's superb clarity of thought.......2007-06-20
1st edition, reissued (1995), 311 pages
This is another of the twenty books that Charlie Munger recommends in the 2nd edition of Poor Charlie's Almanack (which I cannot recommend more highly). When a very widely read and highly effective thinker like Munger gets to eighty years old and recommends a list of just twenty books, I think one would be justified in expecting all of them to be pretty good.
Even so, as I make my way through his list I find myself pleasantly surprised at just how good some of them are. The clarity of thought Hardin demonstrates in this book is simply superb.
There is an important difference comparing this book to most others. Because so much of his subject matter (the subtitle is: `Ecology, Economics and Population Taboos') is smeared over by taboo and emotion, Hardin appears to have decided that in order to deal with this problem he also needs to demonstrate how to think properly.
Thus it is really two books in one: a manual on how to think effectively and a treatise on his chosen subject. For example, he hammers home the importance of default positions to provide the foundation for critical judgement (in economics: there's no such thing as a free lunch; in psychology: reward determines behaviour; in ecology: and then what?).
I am left with a feeling of gratitude towards both Munger and Hardin - without either of whom I would not have read this marvellous book.
With this book you can have a whole education career .......2006-10-29
I must first say I have not finished reading the book. Part of the reason its that I always start again while Im half way through.
This books educates you, in the highest sense of the word, and I am not talking about having to make your mind up about any stand in population control that may be in direct confrontation with your religious beliefs. This book is not about that.
It educates because it teaches you logical thinking, fallacies, numerative, narrative and ecological thinking, history of economic thought, of philosophy of progress. All in chunk-bit sizes, so I would say that even with a university degree, this book has made re-think, re-explore and adequate my thought to a multiple of tools I have not used in a long time.
Its most profound method, which I have not seen in de Bono and the like, is how to address critical issues by:
- Chosing the right words (Rhethoric has been the most overused tool)
- Chosing the right numbers (Please read What the Numbers Tell)
- Chosing the right system of growth (if you decide to do something, see the consequences please!!!)
By reading history, you can see all type of blunders that have resulted form not using in balance the following tools. History? take a look around you, we are not better of than our forefathers eventhough now we can have this tools to guide us.
Since this is a book that teaches how to think, I can clearly see now how it can be so underrated and not be required reading at all levels. Maybe, because the theme of population is brought on, and due to the taboos we have about it, as well as our hopes, etc. this can overcloud the relevance as an educational tool.
Demostat vs. Thermostat and Other Numerate, and Ecology Insights.......2006-07-20
Though the main emphasis is on the population sustaining aspects of our environment and planet, one would miss other economical, numerate, and ecological insights that the sharp mind of Garrett Hardin provides with all of his writing. As a follow-up (in my mind) to Filters of Folly, Hardin again demonstrates his sharp insights on a multitude of endeavors that just don't relate to population. Some anecdotes include economic discussions on scale factors, human nature of foxes and hedgehogs, compound interests as the eighth wonder, Islamic thoughts on usury, law of diminishing returns, one can never merly do one thing, and etc..
Whether you consider yourself an Economist, Ecologist, Environmentalist, or just your average Autodidact, one can can surely benefit from Hardin's thoughts.
Garrett Hardin and the Freedom of Limits.......2005-08-22
This book is essential reading. As someone lucky enough to have called Garrett Hardin my friend, I was once with him at one of his book signings in Santa Barbara, California. As two rather prosperous looking young women rushed by his display table, one said to the other: "`Limits'--I don't like it!" After which Hardin turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and said, "You see, she just summarized my whole problem." But one of the things that Professor Hardin is still teaching us, through his books and his students, is that once we accept the fact that the world has real ecological limits--for example, we stop assuming that we can cram a quarter-billion people into America, or that affordable substitutes for finite resources like oil and topsoil will be generated magically by the marketplace--the quality of our lives will actually improve. It is something like the little boy who has many scattered ambitions, from cowboy to Superman, upon reaching maturity being able to focus in on the adventure of passionately pursuing life's real possibilities. In his own life Hardin was anything but grim. Garrett Hardin just wanted to help our society grow up and, as said in Corinthians, put away childish things.
Book Description
In this classic study of cultural confrontation Professor Arnaldo Momigliano looks at the attitude of the Greeks to four different civilizations - the Roman, Celtic, Jewish and Persian - and analyses their cultural and intellectual interactions from the fourth to the first centuries BC. He argues that in the Hellenistic period the Greeks, Romans and Jews formed a special exclusive relationship and effectively established what until recent times was the normal horizon of Western civilization.
Average customer rating:
- Here's a book worth the very penny it costs
- A political thinker to rival the founders, must read!
- Respect for Government, Properly Understood
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Restoration: Congress, Term Limits and the Recovery of Deliberative Democracy
George F. Will
Manufacturer: Free Press
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Binding: Paperback
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Customer Reviews:
Here's a book worth the very penny it costs.......2007-04-22
Congress is rotten and this book offers the perfect cure for the evils of the federal government -- elect Republicans!
It's the ultimate conservative solution to the woes of contemporary life: Let's go back to the good ol' days. Will puts politicians such as Thomas Jefferson on a pedestal, completely ignoring the bitter criticism that conservatives directed at Jefferson in his day.
On a more recent basis, he says modern politicians should be like Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater who he says was "enticed" into politics in 1952 and quipped at the time, "It ain't for life and it might be fun." He ignores that Goldwater got into politics in 1946 as a prime backer of a state law that prevented veterans from returning to their pre-war jobs. For Goldwater, politics was his only lifetime occupation.
This book isn't an objective analysis of federal politics; it's a blatant recital of the Republican party positions of 1991. It's pure nostalgia, completely oblivious to the "greedy old party" lobbyists such as Jack Abranoff and the stench of corruption surrounding the flood of new lobbyists who flocked to Washington after George Bush was elected in 2000.
It's a disappointing book, because it ignores the basic problem of limiting power in an extraordinarily rich society. The corruption of wealth and power has afflicted every great society since time began; the secret deals that made Enron a major architect of today's energy policies is typical of great power run amok. The basic issue Will ignores is honesty; as Malcolm Gladwell points out in 'The Tipping Point', honesty is governed more by one's associates than by abstract principles. If he's ever serious about "restoration" values, he needs to examine the corruption of Republicans who gained power in the 1990s.
The sheer incompetence of the Bush administration refutes Will's idea that inexperience and ideology trumps age, knowledge and wisdom. He ignores the great unanswered question in politics -- how to blend the enthusiasm and energy of new ideas with the wisdom of experience. In other words, how to curb leftist irrationality while implementing and enhancing the best liberal ideas. However, such thinking relates more to good government than to electing Republicans.
It's a great book for nostalgia buffs, an eloquent reminder of just how good conditions were before the fresh-faced Republican amateurs took control of the White House, Congress and Supreme Court.
But, don't let me deter anyone. Used copies are available for a penny, and it's surely worth at least that. As proven by events of the past four years, it's vivid proof that incompetence is not the sole quality of one party or political author.
A political thinker to rival the founders, must read!.......2003-07-29
RESTORATION
In this book George Will has proven himself to be one of the great political thinkers of our times. His wisdom, although presented in 1992 in Restoration over a decade ago, is still vitally relevant to today and tomarrow and to the future of the American Republic as when he wrote it.
I have spent decades as have many other average Americans, being frustrated, over the sorry state of affairs in our nation and especially in our government institutions.
Many of us have had a nagging feeling that something was causing our nation to slowly slide into the hands of unconstitutional, unpatriotic, unethical, immoral, greedy, power hungry, elitist who pretend to care about "WE the People." But really care only about padding their own nest, enriching themselves and their families with material and monetary things, and to ensure their political longevity.
They seek only to acquire unwarranted influence and with it manipulate the mob and sheepish unenlightened among us for their deviant personal near-treasonous self-gratification.
Communism, socialism, mob rule democracy (dispised by our founders)or life-term representative encumbancy, it makes no difference to them, as long as they are on the top of the social aristocracy, and the rest of us are on the bottom. Nepotism and narcissism runs rampant in their ranks and this shows each and every day whether they are conducting business in the House or Senate, or during elections and reelection campaigns.
They will, as Bill and Hillary have so eloquently demonstrated, do, say and support anything that will help them get and stay in power, as members of that society of disgusting ladies and gentlemen, known as the 20th and 21st century politician...
George will brings all these [] tactics, the senseless selfish unprofessional conduct, the sickening behavior in direct violation of their sacred charges and honor to light. He highlights their failure to respect their sworn oaths and their duty.
He explains how and why our political process, our political representatives and our judiciaries have failed us.
The devils or evils of our destruction if you will are incumbency, redistricting, subsidies, excessive pay for public service and a retirement system that breeds contempt for the constitution. Do away with these and the world and the nation would begin to heal and we would have a chance of returning to a true patriotically moral public servant like representative democratic-republic.
This is a great book, one of the best I have ever read and Mr. Will would get my vote as the man who could help us heal our nations. A must read for one who can stomach the truth of just how bad things have gotten in Washington...
Respect for Government, Properly Understood.......2000-10-17
Will's case rests on a few suppositions. First, he provides examples of daily life in Congress which show that, first, the ideas of representation and deliberation have been replaced by servitude. Legislators are slaves who bring pork to their districts. Second, he argues that this servitude has institutionalized career politicians, thus making it nearly impossible to defeat an incumbent given his resources, and thus turning the job of legislator into a career, rather than the temporary position it was originally intended to be. Both of these have driven Congress out of balance, its power disproportionate to other branches of government. As it has invaded more into private life and taken over more responsibilities in society, it has become more corrupt and less respected. So the argument isn't one of punishment but of restoration -- a means of strengthening Congress by returning it to its original, limited function. For Will, this means reviving two vital concepts: deliberative democracy and classical republicanism.
Without going into too many details, I will say only that I am persuaded by Will's case for term limits, made first in early 1990s. The last time it was seriously considered was when Newt Gingrich, as speaker, brought the matter to a vote on the floor of the House as a part of his Contract With America. It was one of the few Contract issues to be defeated.
Most of George Will's books are compilations of previously published columns. In Restoration, he takes the time to look at in issue -- representation -- in depth. People of all political stripes will benefit from the results, though what they read will not necessarily make them happy. It is one of the most intellectually serious arguments for reform that I've heard. It is also readable and re-readable, making it a valuable, brief look at some of the ideas upon which America was founded. That is no small task.
Book Description
The Franklin Auschwitz trial was the largest, most public, and most important trial of Holocaust perpetrators conducted in West German courts. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, Devin O. Pendas provides a comprehensive history of this momentous event. Situating the trial in a thorough analysis of West German criminal law, the book argues that in confronting systematic, state-sponsored genocide, the Frankfurt court ran up against the limits of law. This book provides a compelling account of the divided response to the trial among the West German public.
Customer Reviews:
Scholarly and compelling.......2007-06-21
Pendas's book does something rare in academic publishing: it deals intelligently and responsibly with a very complex topic (the intersection of German law, crimes against humanity, and the Cold War) in a way that is accessible and even compelling to read. His understanding of the German legal context is nicely passed along to his readers, and makes the outcomes of the Auschwitz Trial (often confusing and disappointing to Anglo-American observers) much more understandable. (It is worth noting, btw, that a number of those who managed and staffed Auschwitz, including its first commandant, were arrested and tried (and many executed) by the Polish government in the immediate aftermath of the war.)
inadequate justice.......2007-06-11
This book can be gainfully read in conjunction with Whitmann's book, Beyond Justice: The Auschwitz Trial. Both cover the 1963-5 Auschwitz trial, held in Frankfurt.
Pendas' account is heavily footnoted, demonstrating a lot of scholarship in this terrible subject. The entire book tends to focus on the legal maneuverings of the trial. By comparison, the actual events at Auschwitz seem to take second place. The biggest shortcoming was the inadequacy of German law, which at that time was largely the case law as existed before the war, to fully prosecute genocide. There is a stark and dreadful contrast between the measured and protracted tactics used by the defense and the mass murders summarily conducted at Auschwitz.
Also greatly inadequate were the numbers of SS prosecuted. In part due to some reluctance by Germans at that time to fully confront their recent past. Under these conditions, the Frankfurt prosecutors did a commendable job with the resources they had.
fascinating narrative, superbly researched.......2006-08-06
I picked up this book while writing a review of Rebecca Wittmann's on the same subject, and found that I couldn't put this one down. Pendas used a wide array sources and secondary literature as the basis for this book, and he has a knack for clear and engaging narrative. Telling anecdotes, like the dramatic arrest of former Auschwitz commandant Baer in 1960, and the Frankfurt court's visit behind the Iron Curtain in Auschwitz in December 1964, make this book well worth the purchase price. My detailed review can be found on my university web site.
Customer Reviews:
a tremendously interesting book .......2005-08-28
Maimonides asserted that anyone who rejected his Thirteen Principles was a heretic who has removed himself from the Jewish people- yet most of these Principles were at one time or another rejected by leading rabbis both before and after Maimonides.
For example, Shapiro writes that even the view that "the Torah in our hands is exactly the same as the Torah that Moses presented to the Children of Israel" has been widely disputed. To be sure, pre-Reform Jews universally accepted the Torah as Divine and as roughly the same as the original text. But Shapiro asserts that historically there have been minor deviations in Torah scrolls, and that even today nine letters in Yemenite Torahs differ from those in those used by the rest of Jewry. Shapiro also cites numerous medieval commentators' assertions that some non-halakhic portions of the Torah, although true and divinely inspired, were written by Joshua or Ezra rather than Moses.
Shapiro also asserts that some of the Principles were arguably contradicted even by Maimonides' own later writings.
A minor quibble: Shapiro's discussion would have been clearer if he had put Maimonides' own language in his book as an appendix.
Believe This.......2004-03-01
There are those for whom their belief in religion will never quite approach their scholarly understanding of it. But the opposite is probably more prevalent. Many more people sincerely profess faith but are ignorant of the knowledge that should necessarily underpin such faith.
It is to this latter group that Marc Shapiro is addressing himself in his book, traditional Jews who might know halakha but who are otherwise ignorant of what their great spiritual giants believed for millennia. Many of the beliefs espoused by these great men run counter to the Thirteen Principles set down by Maimonides (some disagreements extending into the present!), a situation that, ostensibly, should have prevented them from an afterlife and which would have excised their souls from the Jewish nation.
Besides proving his point exhaustively, Dr. Shapiro is presenting a fine intellectual history of Jewish thought from the vantage point of its outer limits. The appendix even includes pictures of God on the title pages of sacred books written in the past few hundred years!
There is no doubt that this book, based on a controversial and satisfyingly unsettling essay that Shapiro penned just a few years ago, will both elicit praise and scorn, the scorn manifesting itself in book bannings and in the hiring of scholarly mercenaries who will be asked to trash the book, site unseen, in predetermined reviews.
Well, these reviewers will have their work cut out for them because Shapiro's book is thoughtful and nuanced and, thereby, evades pigeon holing. Besides addressing out-and-out disagreements that people had regarding creed, there is the bigger problem of Maimonides contradicting himself in matters of belief, both within different contexts and at different times in his life.
Shapiro also notes at length the recognized yet endlessly ironic fact that Maimonides himself was accused of not believing in his own Principles both during his lifetime and afterward.
Most importantly, by invoking an authority no less central than Maimonides himself, Shapiro debunks the notion, embraced by some writers, that scholarly debate concerning the correctness of doctrine is a relic of the past, and that this pursuit of the truth has calcified into unwavering dogma.
The historical realities are to the contrary. The search for what believers are supposed to believe is still driven by studying sacred texts, by our logic and, to some degree, by our intuitions.
Excellent!
Book Description
Can the Holocaust be compellingly described or represented? Or is there some core aspect of the extermination of the Jews of Europe which resists our powers of depiction, of theory, of narrative? In this volume, twenty scholars probe the moral, epistemological, and aesthetic limits of an account or portrayal of the Nazi horror.
These essays expose to scrutiny questions that have a pressing claim on our attention, our conscience, and our cultural memory. First presented at a conference organized by Saul Friedlander, they are now made available for the wide consideration and discussion they merit.
Christopher Browning, Hayden White, Carlo Ginzburg, Martin Jay, Dominick LaCapra, and others focus first on the general question: can the record of his historical event be established objectively through documents and witnesses, or is every historical interpretation informed by the perspective of its narrator? The suggestion that all historical accounts are determined by a preestablished narrative choice raises the ethical and intellectual issues of various forms of relativization. In more specific terms, what are the possibilities of historicizing National Socialism without minimizing the historical place of the Holocaust.
Also at issue are the problems related to an artistic representation, particularly the dilemmas posed by aestheticization. John Felstiners, Yael S. Feldman, Sidra Ezahi, Eric Santner, and Anton Kaes grapple with these questions and confront the inadequacy of words in the face of the Holocaust. Others address the problem of fitting Nazi policies and atrocities into the history of Western thought and science. The book concludes with Geoffrey Hartmans's evocative meditation on memory.
Books:
- The Times Atlas of World History (Hammond Concise Atlas of World History)
- The United Nations: International Organization and World Politics
- The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
- Thirteen Moons: A Novel
- Travels in Kashmir and the Panjab (Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints)
- We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance
- William S. Burroughs At the Front: Critical Reception, 1959 - 1989
- Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler's Bayreuth
- Your Life Is Worth Mine: How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, 1939-1945
Books Index
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