I really enjoyed this. It's a very far-ranging discussion of shifting goals, means, conditions, and values that shaped a mainly commercial (rather thaI really enjoyed this. It's a very far-ranging discussion of shifting goals, means, conditions, and values that shaped a mainly commercial (rather than political) world-spanning empire. It also explores how people's interests and values evolved in many directions, giving me a better understanding of my rather diverse U.K.-origin migrant ancestors. The story features every continent, and there's so much to illustrate that various really major events just don't make it in, such as the Anglo-Persian oil crisis if the 1950s. I'm going to look for some of Darwin's other works, such as "After Tamerlane."...more
This is really powerful. The dialogue is more reflective, with more emotional, cultural, and linguistic nuance than anything else I’ve read. It’s hardThis is really powerful. The dialogue is more reflective, with more emotional, cultural, and linguistic nuance than anything else I’ve read. It’s hard to imagine a better set of characters for quietly expressing the social impact of modern India’s most epoch-changing events: the emergency rule of 1975-77, the crushing of Punjab’s independence movement, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and ensuing massacre of Sikhs in 1984, and the Hindu nationalist demolition of Ayodhya’s Babri Mosque in 1992. In this complex story, the depth and sophistication of India’s heritage stands alongside the ego-starved popular demand for ethnic supremacy....more
Rather than just refuting the claims of Hindu nationalists, Patel does a deep dive into the history and evolution of "majoritarian" democracy in SouthRather than just refuting the claims of Hindu nationalists, Patel does a deep dive into the history and evolution of "majoritarian" democracy in South Asia. And rather than just critiquing Hindu majoritarian rule in India, he also explores the equally oppressive rise of Muslim majoritarianism in Pakistan. It's a powerful, objectively balanced argument.
Patel demonstrates that Hindu nationalists have never aimed to impose a religious orthodoxy, or to make India some sort of theocratic state. They have simply imposed penalties and hardships on non-Hindus, to make Hindus feel superior. The book raises major questions for the whole world, where the "populism" of ethnic majorities in the USA, France, Russia, or China demands advantages for the nation's "real people." ...more
I think it's a competent, entertaining survey of the world's doomsday prophecies. The selection of examples to discuss is a bit random and a bit repetI think it's a competent, entertaining survey of the world's doomsday prophecies. The selection of examples to discuss is a bit random and a bit repetitive, but Newman does her homework and her attitude is refreshing. For example: People can't decide when the Middle Ages ended. Personally, I think we're still in them. After all, if this is the last age, then any quibbles about eras within it are rather pointless.
In discussing Augustine's views on the book of Revelation, she comments, I find it comforting that someone as brilliant and devout as Augustine couldn't understand it either. In examining the predictions of total cataclysm in the Mayan Popol Vu, she notes This is what happens to people who don't respect the hard work their gods went through to create them.
Here's a few more quotes that convey the book's scope and approach:
In researching this book, I read about a lot more prophets, doomsday groups, and theorists than I could possibly include. You may find the ones I've chosen a bit odd. I may have left out your favorite scenario. But the more I researched, the more I realized that the ideas about the end of the world were astonishingly similar.
Also,
I began to realize that no one expects their world to end. People who expect the Apocalypse soon arn't preparing to die but to survive. They'll build an ark or be raptured up or hitch a ride on the mother ship....more
Eaton is so objective that he gives humanizing accounts of Tamerlane and Aurangzeb. Beyond giving a detailed record of the Mughals and their deeds, heEaton is so objective that he gives humanizing accounts of Tamerlane and Aurangzeb. Beyond giving a detailed record of the Mughals and their deeds, he explores medieval India’s world of cultural interaction and political alliance between Muslims and Hindus. In this world, Muslim sultans claim patronage by Lakshmi and Saraswati. The Persian and Sanskrit literary worlds enrich each other. As a Jesuit emissary to emperor Akbar’s court complains, “The king cares little that in allowing everyone to follow his religion, he was in reality violating all.” For all their back-stabbing power-grabs, the emperors commonly aim to transcend ethnic loyalties and promote ranking by merit. It’s mainly the murderous wars of succession between dying emperors’ sons that drive a competition to prove moral superiority. Eaton examines the paradox that Aurangzeb’s efforts to rise above the old Persian and Hindu ideals of sacred kingship, toward a more standardized rule of law, led him to increasingly impose his own concepts of “universal law.” The book casts light on our more globalized efforts to control the military economy, find shared values for an international order, and overcome the emotional appeal of war between civilizations....more
I’ve much appreciated Monbiot’s work as a passionate environmental activist, and there’s a lot of that in this book. But I hadn’t realized what an allI’ve much appreciated Monbiot’s work as a passionate environmental activist, and there’s a lot of that in this book. But I hadn’t realized what an all-round journalist he is, covering loads of additional issues involving war, finance, culture, God, power, or housing in England. This collection of articles dates from the war on terror decade, and Monbiot mercilessly rips the stupidity of spectacular spending on military crusades, while we approach the point of no return on global warming. He’s an angry, driven reporter, and I’d rate his research excellent....more
I learned a lot. The team of 20 scholars produces detailed surveys on the female side of mythology in 15 regions of the world, which span five contineI learned a lot. The team of 20 scholars produces detailed surveys on the female side of mythology in 15 regions of the world, which span five continents (including Oceania). Then three more studies examine the rise of goddess-related religion and myth-making in the 20th century. Unfortunately, this collection has nothing on Africa, except the study of goddesses in ancient Egypt.
In general, the authors are very careful. They are meticulous and avoid exaggeration, as when Anette Hamilton warns of serious dangers in “extrapolating from myth to observed gender relations” [among Aboriginal Australians]. Some of the authors basically collect and present the mythical folklore on women and goddesses in each culture. Others analyze the evolution and influence of the myths.
I thought I knew a fair bit about world mythology, but I didn’t realize how common it is across the world (in Russia, China, New Zealand, Hawaii, etc.) for traditional myth to divide all creation into male–female polarities, such as light–dark, life–death, east–west, up–down, sun–moon, dry–wet, right–left, sacred–profane—with all the more “beneficial” or “positive” qualities regarded as male. I mean, that can seriously program your perception of everything. I also didn’t know how common it is that deities or cosmic principles are portrayed as dual beings, literally half male and half female, like the Hindu Shiva–Shakti “Lord who is half woman,” the Yin–Yang balance, or the Aztec deity Ometéol.
Concerning modern witchcraft, Rosemary Ellen Guiley gives a strictly objective examination of the claims, follies, and activities of witch covens since around WWI. She actually advises that communities seeking goddess-related spirituality should dump the word “witch,” because across the world this term has always meant “a person who harms others through sorcery.”
Maybe the most emotionally gripping study is Jane Caputi’s “On Psychic Activism: Feminist Mythmaking.” Caputi surveys the rise of “patriarchal myth-smashing and woman-identified myth-making,” as seen in the works of writer-activists such as Mary Daly, Starhawk, Barbara G. Walker, Paula Gun Allen, Alice Walker, or Gloria Anzaldúa. She cites Donna Haraway: “the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.” It gets powerfully creative.
In the last study, “Women’s Rewriting of Myth,” Diana Purkiss examines the possibilities, challenges, and limitations for recreating myth with a female perspective. To aspiring myth crafters, she cautions: “I want to close by suggesting that no possible strategy of rewriting myth … can really constitute the kind of clean, revolutionary break with discourse and order sought in these days of feminism and poststructuralism’s greatest confidence.” ...more
Beckwith is extremely careful. He wants to challenge traditional bias against the peoples of Central Asia, who have been commonly depicted as barbariaBeckwith is extremely careful. He wants to challenge traditional bias against the peoples of Central Asia, who have been commonly depicted as barbarian predators on their rivals. He interestingly compares them to the Native nations of North America's central plains, who were also conquered by aggressive sedentary states. It's a worthy work, but so carefully done that it bogs down in a sea of linguistic, chronological, ethnographic detail. It's great as a reference book, but not as a book of stories....more
The writing is excellent and it's inspiring, but I have to wonder how a wider and longer perspective on the story would look.The writing is excellent and it's inspiring, but I have to wonder how a wider and longer perspective on the story would look....more
It's powerful writing that captures the tragedy and grandeur of a massive transformation in world history.It's powerful writing that captures the tragedy and grandeur of a massive transformation in world history....more
I was lucky to hear Mother Teresa speak once. She gave a very short speech, with one simple point about the power of compassion. And in this book, sheI was lucky to hear Mother Teresa speak once. She gave a very short speech, with one simple point about the power of compassion. And in this book, she also basically says just that one thing. I'd assume that serving the poor would be a matter of practical problem solving. But her vocation doesn't even aim for any sort of social or administrative reform to deal with the causes of poverty and homelessness. It just sends a symbolic message, so focused and simple that anyone on earth can get it without translation. Of course Mother Teresa's theology was pre-modern and she was happy to gain backing from anyone, even abusive dictators. Most of us have totally different ideas about what sort of life is best and most fulfilling. But I have to admit, her sense of focus was like a laser -- one life, one message....more
I liked this better than the vast majority of history books I’ve ever read, even though some parts were beyond my comprehension. Mostly, I liked the qI liked this better than the vast majority of history books I’ve ever read, even though some parts were beyond my comprehension. Mostly, I liked the questions. For example, how do we get to feeling obligated, or to feeling that other people owe us things? How is that sense of obligation turned into quantified debt, with collection enforced by the powers that be?
Graeber explains a lot about how debt and collateral have worked, producing bonded servitude, sex slavery, debtors’ prisons, inherited debt, and other sorts of debt peonage on a massive scale. He shows how the responsibility for paying debts has been shifted onto less powerful people, such as the citizens of African nations being penalized into paying at interest for loans taken and stolen by absconding dictators. He explains how creditors have sought to place all risk on debtors through pre-set interest rates, or raising interest rates at will, as allowed in 1980 by a U.S. law to eliminate legal limits on interest. He points out numerous examples from around the world where people have treated each other better, and managed things in more mutually beneficial ways. Maybe, for example, the world could learn something from Muslim efforts to control interest, or maybe just to limit the total payment required to twice the original amount of the loan.
As I said, I don’t really understand Graeber’s proposals for monetary policy or global finance. But maybe to suggest the creativity of the discussion, I’ll just cite the two quotes he uses to start chapter 12:
“Look at all these bums. If only there was a way of finding out how much they owe.” – Repo Man, 1984
“Free your mind of the idea of deserving, of the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.” – Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Dispossessed”...more
Subin does a far-ranging investigation of an odd religious problem: many people have been deified. It happened to Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, GeSubin does a far-ranging investigation of an odd religious problem: many people have been deified. It happened to Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, General Doulas MacArthur, Christopher Columbus, Julius Caesar, Hernando Cortez. Gandhi was widely deified regardless of how hard he protested against it. A lot of these deified men were white, and happened to be crusaders for supposedly godly empires. It gets confusing who was deifying who, or who was just reacting to enemy gods with the volcanic power of spirit possession.
All this opens a highly eclectic search through the global history of popular religion, rummaging for perspectives on the nature of spiritual quests, saints, saviors, avatars, etc. Colonial Englishmen such as William Crooke cast critical eyes upon India: “Hinduism lies in urgent need of a Pope. … there is no official controller of the right to deification.” The long-buried gnostic Gospel of Philip announces, “In the beginning, God created humankind. But now humankind creates God. This is the way of the world—human beings invent gods and worship their creation. It would be more fitting for the gods to worship men!” A man named Baylis on Tanu Island in the Pacific is reportedly “not quite a god,” or he is “more what they call a ‘tabu man,’ someone so sacred and dangerous that they occupy a place somewhere between the living and the dead.” The ancient bishop Clement of Alexandria holds that divinity “pervades all mankind equally.” Those who follow Christ’s teachings “will be formed perfectly in the likeness of the teacher—made a god going about in the flesh.” Of course many people maintain that divinity is inherited. As a participant in the white nationalist online forum Stormfront (named Aryan7314) explains, “God is in our Aryan DNA … So we must do everything to be eternal.” Subin claims that almost all deified people are men, but her dataset omits a lot of goddesses.
All this free-flowing discussion is fascinating, but how can Subin conclude it? In the end, she turns to a fairly safe focus, pointing out the hypocrisy of religion as a quest for superiority: “How can one seek supremacy through a faith that teaches the universal brotherhood of man?” It’s a good question, but she has raised far more questions than that....more
This book reads like a long, rambling conversation. Instead of proposing answers, it raises and discusses good questions. Like the early 20th century This book reads like a long, rambling conversation. Instead of proposing answers, it raises and discusses good questions. Like the early 20th century anthropologists who tossed aside accepted models for the “universal stages” of cultural evolution, and then went to study particular cultures in all their complexity, Graeber and Wengrow aim for a fresh look at ancient civilizations in the light of new findings from the past several decades. Where most archaeologists, historians, or social scientists have tried to retroactively identify the “laws” that have determined how things turned out, Graeber and Wengrow see the vast diversity of ancient cultures as experiments that suggest alternative possibilities for humanity. The evidence they compile undercuts a whole series of assumptions about the inevitable stages of technological, economic, cultural, or political development. By the time they’re done, almost nothing seems inevitable, and everything seems open to our choice and imagination....more
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