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May 8th, 2012
A poem for Gary Snyder’s birthday
from his classic collection
Paperback: New Directions, 1974.
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May 5th, 2012
An excerpt from the recent book
Paperback: Baker Books, 2011.
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*** The Kindle ebook of this book is only $3.79 through May 31, 2012!!!
[ CLICK HERE to read an excerpt ]
*** Sorry, apparently the excerpt of this book is not able to be embedded.
May 4th, 2012
When Technologies Take on a Life of Their Own.
A Featured Review of
Paperback: Princeton UP, 2011.
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Reviewed by Myles Werntz.
In an age of iPads, digital uploads, drone surveillance, and debates over the limits of the Internet, the question of whether or not “technology” is an unlimited good remains an open question. Proponents of the most recent iteration of the technology revolution will decry the naysayers as “Luddites”, while the inheritors of Wendell Berry and Jacques Ellul will continue to remain suspicious of technology’s pervasive effects within society, and (more perniciously) over against society. As Wendell Berry has argued, technology may be an aid to communal life, or it can destroy it; the latter use of technological advances–the use of arrows in Genghis Kahn’s conquest of Asia, or the use of gunpowder to colonize Africa–remains the dark side of technological advances.
This last point–the relationship between technology and the subjugation of people is the subject of Daniel Headrick’s Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Imperialism, 1400 to the Present, in which we are presented with an account of western imperialism, and its relationship to technology. Headrick notes that the common assumption is that imperialist cultures flourish because they are able to make use of superior technology. Such a narrative is too facile, Headrick argues, for it assumes that superior manipulation of natural elements (technology) always results in a successful conquest.
May 4th, 2012
Putting Meat in the Middle
of the Plate of our Public Discourse.
A Review of
Paperback: Back Bay Books, 2010.
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Reviewed by Melody Harrison Hanson.
[Editor's Note: Although this book is older than most we review, I decided to run this review given the combination of the author's heralded appearance at the recent Festival of Faith and Writing and the vast interest of our readers in food issues. ]
“99% of the meat sold in the United States today comes from a factory farm.”
In the 1970s, my missionary parents uprooted us from the barefoot paradise of Papua New Guinea and planted us in Southern California. My mother, suffering a bizarre set of health issues, began looking for answers in healthy eating practices. While other kids ate Twinkies and Ding Dongs, Mother read Adelle Davis books on nutrition and force-fed us cod liver oil.
Perhaps because of this, my need to fit in urged me to become a steak-loving “normal “person. Food, for me, was always more than mere sustenance; it was a visceral, beautiful, even creative thing. But as far being a political statement or a critical health issue, well that was strictly for the weirdoes.
Reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals was the first time that I seriously considered that the Chicken Parmesan in front of me or the meat neatly stacked in my refrigerator was once a living thing. And confronted by the horrors of modern animal farming, as recounted in shocking detail by Foer, I had to face certain facts: factory farms are disgusting and dangerous for our health.
May 4th, 2012
This is the laughing-eyed amongst them all:
My lady’s month. A season of young things.
She rules the light with harmony, and brings
The year’s first green upon the beeches tall.
How often, where long creepers wind and fall
Through the deep woods in noonday wanderings,
I’ve heard the month, when she to echo sings,
I’ve heard the month make merry madrigal.
May 3rd, 2012
A Promise Even Greater than that of Lady Liberty
A Featured Review of
Paperback: Orbis Books, 2012.
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Reviewed by Jonathan Felton.
A Church without Borders
One could be forgiven for expecting this book to be a rehash of liberal arguments about immigration policy, anchored by a smattering of bible verses. It isn’t. Ched Myers and Matthew Colwell have something else in mind, and their short book contributes some big ideas to discussions of “biblical faith and immigrant justice “
The authors acknowledge that the reflections in their book are “unapologetically theological and ecclesial.” This is a book about God and the church. They are more concerned with conveying “a faith-rooted ethic regarding the sojourner in our midst than with the current debates over U.S. immigration and naturalization policies.” Acceptance of their thesis does have implications for our attitude toward those policies. The authors hope we will approach them with a revised sense of loyalty, and therefore with a renewed set of priorities.
May 3rd, 2012
A Brief Review of
including contributions by Lawrence Freeman OSB, Esther de Waal, Kallistos Ware, Shirley du Boulay, Andrew Louth, and others
Paperback: Orbis Books, 2011.
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Reviewed by Greg Richardson.
Journey to the Heart is a solid, substantial book that presents a comprehensive and varied story. The chapters grow out of talks given over four years for a course that traced both the diversity and common thread of contemplative Christianity. It provides a context and perspective for understanding the story of Christian contemplation.
This new book describes the community of Christian contemplatives that stretched from Jesus, John, and Paul through our times. Each chapter fits its subject into the context of this tradition and explains how it contributes to the growth and development of the tradition.
May 2nd, 2012
Our Book Trailer Video of the Week…
Hardback: HarperOne, 2012.
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Watch for our review in our next print issue, which will be out later this month!
May 1st, 2012
A Brief Review of
Paperback: University Of Chicago Press, 2011.
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Reviewed by Will Fitzgerald.
Sacred Harp singing, with its pulsing rhythm, heavy metal loudness, and impassioned 18th century spirituality, attracts a wide diversity of singers—people you’d never expect to come together to sing from a book of Christian hymns. It’s also attracted its share of participant scholars, such as David Warren Steel (Makers of the Sacred Harp), Buell E. Cobb (The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and Its Music), Kiri Miller (Traveling Home: Sacred Harp Singing and American Pluralism)—all the way back to George Pullen Jackson’s 1933 study, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands: The Story of the Fasola Folk, Their Songs, Singings, and “Buckwheat Notes”. Clawson’s book joins this body of work, with a slight twist. Rather than focusing on the southern singers who nursed this tradition (as Jackson and Cobb do), or the non-southern “diaspora” singers whom Miller investigates, Clawson looks in depth at four locations where Sacred Harp singing occurs, two in the South (Sand Mountain, Alabama, and Holly Springs, Georgia) and two in the North (Chicago, Illinois, and Minneapolis, Minnesota). Additional chapters examine the effect of a bubble of interest that occurred when two Sacred Harp songs, sung by non-professional Sacred Harp singers, were included in the 2003 movie, Cold Mountain.
May 1st, 2012
A review copy of this book arrived in the mail today. I look forward to reviewing it!
Paperback: Chelsea Green, 2012.
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Watch for our review in the near future…
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