Book Description
Beautifully redesigned, Joyce Carol Oates's most popular earlier novel, which explores the psyche of a preadolescent killer, is now back in print, with an afterword by the author.
Customer Reviews:
Funny, Tragic A Hard Read .......2007-08-01
I am reading a lot of Joyce Carol Oates books, as I love her style, and the way she takes you into her stories. At present I am reading her set of four books written in the 60s as part of the Wonderland Quartet, her first book A Garden of Earthly Delights is magnificent and superb story. Expensive People is a trying read. The highlights of this book are the way Oates describes people with money, and how little they give back to society...a commentary which still fits the high income level suburbs in Northern California as well, the plasticity of the individuals living in these areas, with their big houses, small yards, little interest but in jogging, going to teas, country clubs, etc...She is talking not about people with old monies, but the nouveau riche, and she does this very well. Oates uses a young overweight 18 year old as her primary narrator and character, he is the neglected son...is fixated with his mother, and his oedipal alliance creates lots of trauma for him and in the end causes tragedy and loss...In a sense the book has great images, it is written exceptionally well...might be that I did not read it fast enough, it surely was not a page turner for me, like other of her novels...I would recommemd it with reservation... it is an interesting book.
one of the finest American novels.......2004-06-12
Darkly funny, richly allusive, Oates' satire of the upper middle class is a wonderful read. Many Nabokovian resonances.
A flawed but engaging early work by the prolific Oates.......2001-09-03
Joyce Carol Oates must be one of the most prolific contemporary novelists of our time. Her taste for torrid themes, in particular the brutal and bizarre, are well known. "Expensive People", one of her early works, starts off with a bang. A more direct opening you'll not find. The scene is set. You're instantly captivated and as she reels you in, you succumb and immediately find yourself in Richard Everett's head as he unveils his life story to you...bit by bit. You know you're dealing with dysfunctionality as soon as you meet his parents. There's a seething madness underneath just waiting to get out. If the medium were film, you'll see them cast in grainy black and white. But it isn't. Sad to say, the book loses momentum midway and it becomes tedious. You keep waiting for something to happen and when it does, it's anticlimactic. In the words of Richard, life isn't fiction. Nor is it half as dramatic. Oates is a colourful and engaging writer. She's got craft but has a tendency to indulge herself and when she does, she loses focus. "Expensive People" isn't a conventional thriller. It's a social critique of American society at the turn of the 60s decade and about the falseness of respectable society on the brink of a social revolution that will forever shatter time tested norms. While flawed and not entirely satisfying, it's an impressive early work and Oates got much better by the time she wrote Black Water.
surrealism of suburbia.......2000-04-11
Joyce Carol Oates writes a Nostradamus-like prediction in "Expensive People". She delves deeply and sympathetically into the mind of a maddened child, and what events and conditions have played upon this child to reduce him to his psychotic state.
Her description of suburbia are chillingly real, in the surrealism that they potray about our middle-America life and the saftey net of support that is purported. In the wake of the events at Columbine high school in Littleton, CO, "Expensive People" is a must read for all of our society to better understand ourselves, and our disenchanted teenagers.
A highly enjoyable book.......1998-09-29
JCO takes us deep into the mind of a child killer -- that is a killer who just happens to be a chid. It's a disturbing affair, with the style random and jumbled to give a bit of consistency to this troubled mind.
As an early adult recovering from a near similiar fate as the central character, Richard Elwood, I find it an accurate portrait of the descent into childhood madnesses. It is also a realistic picture of middle America in the 1960s.
JCO writing is superb and she really pulls you into the minds of her characters through Elwood's slow narrative.
A great book
Average customer rating:
- Delivering Fire
- The magic continues
- California dreamin'
- Enjoyable 'end of magic' fantasy
- Joint Review of The Burning City and Burning Tower
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Burning Tower
Larry Niven , and
Jerry Pournelle
Manufacturer: Pocket
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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The Draco Tavern
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Building Harlequin's Moon
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The Burning City
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The Magic Goes Away Collection: The Magic Goes Away, The Magic May Return, and More Magic
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Ringworld's Children
ASIN: 0743416929 |
Book Description
Return to the "vivid and unusual" (Kirkus Reviews) world of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's The Burning City, where the fire god has retreated into myth, leaving the residents of Tep's Town unprotected for the first time in their history.
Unfortunately, a fiery fate isn't the only danger the town is facing. From out of the desert come monsters -- great birds with blades instead of wings, driven by some unknown force. Although they can be killed, the threat these terror birds pose is worse than death. Danger on the roads means no trade. No trade means that Tep's Town will be no more.
Sent by the Lords of Lordshills to discover the source of the terror birds, Lord Sandry and his beloved, Burning Tower, must travel into a world where magic is still strong -- and where
someone or something waits to destroy them!
Filled with the sweeping adventure, memorable characters, and imaginative world-building that have defined the novels of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Burning Tower is another triumph.
Customer Reviews:
Delivering Fire.......2007-05-13
As Prometheus gifted us with fire Messrs. Niven and Pournelle, ever the consumate collaborators, bring us into a world where magic refuses to die and the gods themselves can be held to answer for their acts. Perhaps Science Fiction's most creative team and certainly ranked amongst the greatest for their individual contributions, the Larry and Jerry act again bring us novelty and continuity in their "Lordshills" series.
The magic continues.......2006-12-02
A reviewer above said these books [Burning City and Burning Tower] appeal only to hardcore Pournelle & Niven readers, and added that even they should only buy the books at discount.
I heartily disagree.
It's not Shakespeare, it's not Conrad, but it's not silly or poorly written. While the plots are not as tight as some English & writing teachers would strive for in a writing class, I would not call them haphazard at all. And while some characterization is weak, I'm willing to accept that given the relatively large cast of characters in this book (Burning Tower) and its prequal. I found the characterization for the major characters and the descriptive writing to be pretty good. For something really bad, try reading "1865". Or rather....don't read '1865' or, '1910' for that matter.
If the one or two poor reviews posted here have not dissuaded you from reading Burning Tower or Burning City, you might be interested in knowing that the background world is taken from a collection of stories titled "The Magic Goes Away". That book inspired a sequal "The Magic May Return".
As reviews here have mentioned, magic was once common, but went away because it was made possible only with the presence of "manna". So people literally used up the manna and the magic went away.
The first book (Burning City) tells the story of a young man who leaves a city that seems to be magic-poor, yet is still dominated by a fire-god and magic. He leaves the city has adventures and later returns. On one level it is a simple adventure/coming of age story. On another level it is about
how a city/society is changed when it is exposed to the greater world.
The second book (Burning Tower) is on one level a quest: Find out why the terror birds are attacking the caravans. On another level it is a love story about two people from different worlds. He is a Lord. She is a semi-nomadic trader. On an even higher level, it is about how people react when they realize a precious resource is going away. After you read this book, substitute the word "oil" for "manna" and then use your imagination.
I found both books interesting and fun to read. Note: while Burning Tower stands on it's own, it obviously helps the reader to have first read Burning City.
California dreamin' .......2005-05-14
"You don't know about me without you've read a book called" . . . Huck Finn's opening to his autobiography is particularly appropriate here. This book can't be enjoyed, almost not read, unless you have completed "The Burning City", its predecessor. For starters, your first question will be "what time period does this take place in?" A little research reveals you'll be many thousands of years off - in the wrong direction! Appearing at first like one of the standard post-nuclear holocaust fantasies, it turns out to be many millennia in the past. Niven and Pournelle have violated a guideline of trilogy writing. If you pick up this book assuming it's a "stand-alone" novel, you will be sadly disappointed. If you start it as a fantasy adventure story, you will find much excitement, adventure and, of course, travel. What's a fantasy story for if not to go on quests in distant lands? Well, that's not quite the case here.
Location questions are dispelled by the maps provided. The story takes place in Southern California. In what's now called the Los Angeles Basin, there exists a multi-layered society. There are Lords and Ladies, Lordkin, who seem to be minor aristocrats, and the kinless - the bottom of society. As with today, bushfires are a matter of concern in this arid environment. A fire sets off this story in revealing the rivalry within the aristocrat clans and threats from other clan groups. Ameliorating this rather medieval scene are the merchants' wagon trains. To keep commerce flowing, wagon trains are pretty much left in peace, except by bandits - and "terror birds".
The terror birds, which almost elude physical description, become the core of the story. They seem to be an archaeopteryx with an attitude. Having attacked the merchants' wagons, they've also destroyed whole villages and besieged a town. Having upgraded from solitary attacker to group assault, the birds are clearly becoming a serious threat. Are they being guided using magic? Lord Sandry joins the Feathersnake caravan to find out. He encounters the gypsy beauty queen Burning Tower [you never learn the source of the name] and romance flares. Oh, yes. As a virgin, Tower is allowed a "bonehead" - a unicorn - for a mount. It's all quite genre stuff. Sandry, the Hero of this tale, doesn't have a quest. He's just riding shotgun for the commercial travellers. Still, he's allowed some heroic activity with a bit of help from his [girl]friends.
The framework of this fantasy fable is that "there's gold in them thar hills". Gold is one of the sources of "manna" [magic] that makes things happen in this rather disjointed tale. So is petrified wood. The problem with magic is that once introduced by an author[s], there are no limits to its use. Magic is available to certain types who use others as pawns in power struggles. In this bizarre Southern California environment, it is gods who wield that power most significantly. Unless they are turned into myths, which depletes their prowess. Magic, like gold in a later age, is being depleted. Dire predictions for the future permeate this story, and the result will surely be depicted in the next volume. However, i will not be learning the accuracy of the predictions. I haven't yet worked out how Atlantis found it's way to the Pacific Ocean before sinking, as this novel implies. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Enjoyable 'end of magic' fantasy.......2005-03-27
Thousands of years ago, the magic is running out. Although the firegod Yangin-Atep has 'gone mythical,' and manna is slowly seeping back into Tep's Town, throughout the world, manna is being used and once used, it cannot be replenished. But a few sources remain--and trade in manna-enabled objects remains central to the economies of the cities of what is now California. When huge birds begin attacking caravans and cutting off this trade, the leaders of Tep's Town send Sandry, a young lord, along with Burning Tower (the woman he loves), her half-sister and coyote-sired Clever Squirrel, as well as some mercenaries and a couple of 'Lordkin' to determine the source of the problem and to re-open the vital trade in magic.
Terror birds had been known to caravaneers for ages, but never before had they organized. Clever Squirrel determines the only possible solution--they are being controlled by a god. But what god would want to destroy the profitable trade in manna-enriched items? And what can their trading party do against the power of a god? Their journey takes them across California and what is now the southwest U.S. to the mythical city of Aztlan--from whence Aztec culture descended. There's plenty of action and some clever plot twists along the way.
Authors Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle continue the saga begun in THE BURNING CITY. The 'end of magic' motif adds poignancy to the story--and creates a bit of moral ambiguity as Sandry and Burning Tower learn the motives behind the terror bird attacks.
BURNING TOWER is a solid and enjoyable adventure. I did think that the relationship stuff felt a bit like an add-on, designed to make the book appeal to the teenaged girl audience. It was easy enough to tune out, though, and didn't detract from the story.
Three Stars
Joint Review of The Burning City and Burning Tower.......2005-02-21
These 2 books are fantasy novels set in a human prehistory in which magic exists. The twist to this idea is that magic is based on a naturally occurring but non-renewable resource called manna (what else). In some ways, this is an attempt at an allegory of contemporary dependence on petroleum products. Against the backdrop, Niven and Pournelle set a series of stories about a period when manna is really drying up. The first book, The Burning City, is a bildungsroman about a young man growing up in a relatively magicless community with an unusual social structure and his later adventures in the greater world. The second book, Burning Tower, is a quest story in which the heroes, related to the heroes of The Burning City, search for powerful wizards manipulating magic in a malignant way.
These are not particularly well written books. Plots are haphazardly developed, characterization is weak, and good descriptive writing is conspicuous by its absence. The Burning City, in particular, is marred by some poorly developed allegory. Neither Niven nor Pournelle are gifted writers though some of their previous work, both individually and in collaboration, is considerably better than either of these books. Neither of these books come close to matching their best work, The Mote in God's Eye, a very good novel.
Given these deficiencies, the books succeed or fail on the authors' ability to weave traditional mythology and prehistory into their premise. Here, they are only modestly successful. Their use of mythic elements is relatively superficial. I can recommend these books only to hard core Niven-Pournelle fans, and then only if they purchase these books at a discount.
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Light of Burning Towers: Poems: New and Selected
Gary Geddes
Manufacturer: Vehicule Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1550650076 |
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The Burning Tower
Grace Chetwin
Manufacturer: Feral Pr Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General | Fantasy | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1930094051 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Australian Library Journal, published by Australian Library and Information Association on February 1, 2005. The length of the article is 8191 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: Burning towers and ashen learning: September 11 and the changes to critical literacy.
Author: Tara Brabazon
Publication:
The Australian Library Journal (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 2005
Publisher: Australian Library and Information Association
Volume: 54
Issue: 1
Page: 6(17)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Ploughshares Monitor, published by Project Ploughshares on June 22, 2002. The length of the article is 900 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 war against the innocents: we can respond when we see people trapped in the burning twin towers of hatred and violence.
Author: Lowell Ewert
Publication:
Ploughshares Monitor (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2002
Publisher: Project Ploughshares
Volume: 23
Issue: 2
Page: 22(1)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
- It's a fun adventure novel... but ultimately unimportant
- I don't give out 5-Star Ratings to just any book . . .
- I'd give it more that five stars if I could.
- In my top 5 of science fiction
- One of the best Cyberpunk novels around
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The Long Run: A Tale of the Continuing Time
Daniel Keys Moran
Manufacturer: Quiet Vision Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1576466396 |
Customer Reviews:
It's a fun adventure novel... but ultimately unimportant.......2006-03-07
The Long Run easily exists on its own within Moran's larger opus of the Tales of the Continuing Time. While characters from Emerald Eyes would be familiar to readers of that novel, all points of this second novel easily sustain themselves. As a caper novel, The Long Run performs very well. Moran has created as likable and charming a hero in Trent as any of the host of leading men who have played such parts in various media (particularly screen of recent years). However, despite the suspenseful thrill it will successfully provide many readers, its effect on the genre of science-fiction will be very, very small. Because it operates so firmly in the conventions of the caper novel, it will have only the same effect that a particularly well-made bacon-cheeseburger newly branded and marketed on the public would have on the fast-food industry. People will buy it; people will like it. Chains of restaurants will not be built around it; rival restaurants will not be forced to new levels of innovation to deal with it. As to its effects on the genre, science fiction authors will not be forced to deal with Trent the Uncatchable and his run in their own works as they write.
WHO SHOULD READ THIS:
There is a large market for the suspenseful and the thrilling. The Long Run comes in at less than 350 pages, is well-written, and should please many, many science-fiction fans who need not be ashamed to read and like this book. It grips the reader and makes him care about the outcome, which his as much as anyone can ask of this sort of work. For all the people that enjoy Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible, this is your novel. Buy it for your next vacation. Despite our rather harsh review, the harshness stems from a philosophical position rather than contempt for the writing. This just isn't a book we look to put in the time capsule when civilization falls.
WHO SHOULD PASS:
As we said for Emerald Eyes, philosophers should not enter. As in all caper novels and movies, they suffer by comparison to great dramas. For example, briefly compare in your mind Sneakers and Saving Private Ryan or The Stainless Steel Rat and Darwin's Radio. They're operating in different arenas. We might be accused of the same snobbery that prevents comedies from winning best-picture Oscars at the Academy Awards but there it is. We probably are snobs. For readers who are looking for that serious, sober, high-minded work in literature-well, it's missing here. And that will be disappointing most especially for readers who enjoyed that aspect of Moran's Emerald Eyes.
READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW AT INCHOATUS.COM
I don't give out 5-Star Ratings to just any book . . ........2003-07-10
What good things can't be said about this book? It is probably the single strongest cyberpunk novel ever written, with only Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired coming close. The action rocks, the humor is dark, sardonic, and counter-authoritarian, just the way I like it. The hero is strong but not unbeatable (if only his enemies could think like he did).
The hero of the story, Trent, is now in his early twenties, and is a professional high-tech thief and con-man extraordinaire, living his life this way as a statement of principal (and a matter of necessity) against the authorities who used a nuclear weapon to kill his small collective family years before, and in the process, kill hundreds of thousands of bystanders and render millions more homeless.
Trent is thrown from his life as a buccaneer among the underbelly of polite society (or so he sees himself) and is once again pitted against his family's old adversary. The two play cat and mouse for the rest of the book, with Trent one step ahead of his opponent, and thus the title of the book, "The Long Run".
I enjoyed reading every page of this book, I bought it long ago, in it's original paperback version. I loaned it to a friend, never saw it again, and did not hesitate to buy it once more after an extensive search. Now I have this version on order, and will consider that money well-spent, too. I've read the whole novel six times, and will read it many more times in the future.
Simply outstanding.
I'd give it more that five stars if I could........2003-01-15
Not only is Trent one of the best characters but Moran's writing is superb and his world is all encompassing and immersive. Great book and great writer. I have two copies. I cannot wait for another book.
In my top 5 of science fiction.......2002-10-13
The book excels in both character and environment. I very much recommend this.
Trent, is one of the most remarkable characters I have read in the science fiction genre. Whether he is heisting high-tech, arguing political ideologies, expressing emotional ties, flying around the down town high rise projects at 500kph on an escape and evade -its all very tangible to me. It takes me there
If you are a Sci-Fi regular you need to read this one. Most Sci-Fi is bunk (I'm not even the author or a friend either [these things always make you wonder]).
Things to be in store for:
- He lives in an apartment that just happened to come w/ a bazooka (all I got was shag).
- Trent was genetically created and it deals with some of the personal details that arise from such a situation in adequate detail.
- The action is BTB (Better Than Bond) and yet Trent has a philosphy against killing. Instead he uses a gun with something akin to DMSO + a few sleep inducing agents.
At one time the screen play for this was on the net. Might give you a taste -though the book is much better. He has a site too with other short writings etc. on it. Hope this of use.
One of the best Cyberpunk novels around.......2002-04-16
This novel quickly sucks you in with its richly imagined, plausible but ever-so-slightly off kilter alternate "future history". This is the second novel in the "Tales of the Continuing Time" and follows a young, gene-modified thief named Trent as he emerges from a comfortable coccoon of technology and close friendships to the bigger, badder world around him. The sweep and vista of the novel grow with the character as you begin to discover that he's not just a VERY smart near-future hacker, but one of two remaining genetically engineered humans that are quite simply homo superior.
The back-story for this novel is what really makes it unique. It helps if you've read the previous novel (Emerald Eyes) but it's not required since Moran fills in more than enough detail to keep you up to speed. The alternate future where a reorganized United Nations overcomes and occupies America (think the West Bank writ really, really large) and has to contend with a dozen different species of American "terrorists" rings very true, especially considering how the real world has turned out (think 9/11)...
It's fast paced and eventful, and all in all, it leaves you breathless and wanting more...luckily the author has written one more book in this series -- The Last Dancer. Read Emerald Eyes and then RUN out and buy the next novel.
Book Description
Something has changed.
After the horrors of World War II, people everywhere believed that it could never happen again, but today the evidence is unmistakable that anti-Semitism is dramatically on the rise once more. The torching of European synagogues, suicide terror in Israel, the relentless comparison of the Israelis to Nazis, the paranoid post–September 11 Internet-bred conspiracy theories, the Holocaust-denial literature spreading throughout the Arab world, the calumny and violence erupting on American college campuses: Suddenly, a new anti-Semitism has become widespread, even acceptable to some.
In this chilling and important new book, Ron Rosenbaum, author of the highly praised
Explaining Hitler, brings together a collection of powerful essays about the origin and nature of the new anti-Semitism. Paul Berman, Marie Brenner, David Brooks, Harold Evans, Todd Gitlin, Jeffrey Goldberg, Bernard Lewis, David Mamet, Amos Oz, Cynthia Ozick, Frank Rich, Jonathan Rosen, Edward Said, Judith Shulevitz, Lawrence Summers, Jeffrey Toobin, and Robert Wistrich are among the distinguished writers and intellectuals who grapple with painful questions: Why now? What is—or isn’t—new? Is a second Holocaust possible, this time in the Middle East? How does anti-Semitism differ from anti-Zionism?
These are issues too dangerous to ignore, too pressing to deny.
Those Who Forget the Past is an essential volume for understanding the new bigotry of the twenty-first century.
Customer Reviews:
More Defense of the Indefensible.......2006-12-02
I have yet to see a honest approach to this complex subject that does other than portray the Jews as victims. There is never any acknolwedgement that all people and, yes, all races/cultures, at time do very bad things to each other. Except for the Jews. With them it is always someone else's fault. Even now, as they do their best to destroy the Palestinians, after invading their homes, stealing their dignity and turning Gaza into another Warsaw Ghetto, they refuse to admit that what they are doing is wrong. And let's not forget that the Arabs are also semites, when we go throwing that "anti-semite" ajective around. There are Jews who recognize and speak out on this problem, such as Norman Finklestein and Gore Vidal. And there are, thankfully, Jewish run organizations in Israel who are fighting for the human rights of the Palestinians, realizing that it is the ongoing mistreatment of others, the continuing claim that Israel is above reproach, that is creating a negative image of Israel - they are doing this to themselves. They are their own worst enemy.
Superbly balanced timely collection of voices.......2006-11-24
With so many studies of anti-Semitism available, the choice of an overview of the central issues is daunting. This book, in my opinion, is a better place to start than historical exegeses that methodically unpick the past hisotry of slurs. Its focus on contemporary commentary by contempoary commentators is its greatest strength. Many non-Jews accept that anti-Semitism existed historically but have great difficulty recognising its current expressions. Conventional liberal wisdom holds that anti-Semitism has gone away; it is a spent force not worth bothering with, except by a few insignificant lumpen elements with no media credibility. Did I slip in the last phrase deliberately? I sure did. It is the media credibility of the new expressions of anti-Semitism that are most alarming. These geenrally take the form of castigations of Israeli military actions extending to Israeli govenment policies, and shading into 'critiques' of Israel as a country, a society, and a nation. Every democracy has to accept scrutiny of its political and security actions. But when criticism moves beyond the political and is genercially directed at a whole society, where no acknowlegement is made of ongoing debates between citizens and government policies, then there is just cause to complain that dark prejudices are at work. This book does a marvellous job of bringing many of these hidden influences to the surface for analysis. Perhaps the most telling line in the text is the concern expressed by the majority of commentators that critics of Israel obsess about its shortcomings while selectively ignoring the brutal human rights abuses taking place in all the countries surrounding it. If you were of the opinion that criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism are decouplable politically, this book may ask you the re-examine that assumption.
The spreading mental virus.......2006-06-15
It never went away. It was hiding in the West, but in the Arab World it has been very prevalent and open throughout the last few decades. The evidence of its resurgence includes the terror onslaught on Israeli civilians, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries in Europe, the twisted habit of some media to equate Israel with Hitler's Germany and Zionism with Nazism, the lunatic conspiracy theories in best-selling books and on the internet, the torching of synagogues in Europe, the rise in attacks on European Jews, the filthy propaganda in the Arab media and the recent pronouncements of the president of Iran.
This valuable collection of essays explores the history and current state of the oldest hatred from different perspectives. A wide range of opinions from across the political spectrum is represented here, including those of Melanie Phillips, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Martin Peretz, Bernard Lewis, Paul Berman, Nat Hentoff, Todd Gitlin, Amos Oz, David Brooks and Robert Wistrich. Those essays that impress the least or come across as insincere or unconvincing are by Judith Butler, Edward Said and Tariq Ramadan.
The essays address a range of topics including the differences and similarities between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism, old and new manifestations of Anti-Semitism, the situation in various European countries and in the Arab World. In Europe, this plague is found amongst the mainly Leftist cultural and government elites and the non-integrated immigrant populations whilst in the Arab sphere it is openly promoted and disseminated in the media and the mosques. Even in the USA, the snake is rearing its head amongst leftwing academics on campus.
The most vivid and shocking descriptions of the madness appear in Jeffrey Goldberg's essay on Egypt just after 9/11, Marie Brenner's piece on the situation in France, Fiamma Nirenstein's history of how the Left turned against Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and Ruth Wisse's frightening comparison between now and the 1930s. She points out how the New York Times ignored the Holocaust then and how the same Old Grey Harlot prefers to blame Israel for every act of Islamic extremism. It is ironic in that the aim of the new Anti-Semitism is the delegitimization and ultimate destruction of the Jewish state.
One of the best descriptions of the new manifestation is by Harold Evans, who makes a lucid distinction between valid criticism of Israel and the frenzied and pathological condemnation of this brave little country by those who ignore atrocities and oppression everywhere else in the world. Historian Victor Davis Hanson has called this resurgent Medusa of Jew-hatred "the worldwide moronic convergence" and its three heads are the Left, the lunatic Right and fanatical Islamism. The political spectrum is not linear, but a circle where extreme Left and Right meet.
The book opens with an illuminating introduction by Ron Rosenbaum and concludes with an afterword by Cynthia Ozick in which she observes that the new Anti-Semitism proceeds in the guise of Anti-Zionism and through the abuse of the language of human rights. And it goes hand in hand with Anti-Americanism. I also recommend The Contract Of Mutual Indifference by Norman Geras, The New Anti-Semitism by Phyllis Chesler and Unholy Alliance by David Horowitz, for a better understanding of these perilous times.
A brilliant collection of articles.......2004-10-29
This book deals with hatred of Israel and many of the reactions to it. It consists of about 50 separate essays. One of the inspirations for the book was Philip Roth's novel, "Operation Shylock," and the relevant excerpt from this book is included as one of the essays. That essay explains the threat of Israel becoming a sort of extermination camp for Jews, with nuclear weapons rather than Zyklon B being the relevant weapon.
The book, which begins with an excellent introduction by Ron Rosenbaum, is a superb collection of ideas and thoughts. One of the essays that impressed me the most was by Tom Gross, describing the ghastly reporting by the British media of the events in Jenin in April, 2002. Until I read this article, I just couldn't believe that the folks at the Guardian would abandon all journalistic standards just to hurt a few Jews by spouting some absurd lies about Israel. After all, no matter what they thought about Jews or Israel, these people were professionals who I thought were unlikely to wish to destroy the good reputation the Guardian had so carefully built up. Such destruction would cost them money! But this article showed me that they had indeed turned the Guardian into something far less valuable than it had been in the past (perhaps thinking that such an approach would appear more sensational and improve their sales).
I also especially enjoyed the articles by Paul Berman, Robert Wistrich, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Ruth Wisse, Melanie Phillips, Joshua Muravchik, Martin Peretz, Cynthia Ozick, Fiamma Nirenstein, and Bernard Lewis. And of course, I had to read the essay by Daniel Gordis that started "Dear Jill." No, it wasn't to me, it was to Jill Jacobs. But it was a scary look into the politics of a graduating rabbinical student.
There are articles by various opponents of Zionism, including Tariq Ramadan, Edward Said, and Judith Butler. I think it was a good idea to allow the reader to see a little of how they view the world.
I certainly recommend this book.
A comprehensive collection.......2004-07-12
The revival of Anti- Semitism a bit more than half a decade after the Shoah is one of the most painful and disappointing realties of our time. This revival has one major source, the hatred of Israel being preached throughout the Arab and to a degree the Islamic world, a hatred which has been adopted by the Left in the West. This new anti- Semitism combines with the ' old European Fascist Anti- Semitism' which many wanted to think had disappeared with the defeat of the Nazis.
Instead we see a new improbable combination of Extreme Right and Extreme Left.
In this collection of fifty essays a good share of which are of very high quality a very serious exploration of this anti- Semitism is made. The book contains the work of the most respected people working in various areas, such as Bernard Lewis surveying the world of Islam's Anti- Semitism ,Paul Berman and Melanie Philips looking at New- Left Anti- Semitism, Dr.David Zangen an eyewitness telling of the blood- libel in the alleged Jenin massacre, Gabriel Schoenfeld on Israel and the Anti- Semites,Ruth Wisse on the consequences of ignoring Anti- Semitism.
The supposed seed of this work was Rosenbaum's reading Philip Roth's ' Operation Shylock' and considering the possibility of a 'Second Holocaust' And it is clear, and I am not sure that this is explored fully enough in this volume that the real aim of Arab Anti- Semitism anyway is the delegitimization of Israel that would lead to its destruction. In other words the new Anti-Semitism does not like the Nazi- brand focus on killing every Jew everywhere in the hope of eliminating Jews completely from the world. Its real aim is to eliminate the Jewish state, and in so doing eliminate the Jews from any place of their own in the world, and any power of their own in History.
This collection contains a great deal .It is not complete. And there are articles I would not have included. ( I do not really think it makes sense to give a hearing to those who wish to somewhat hypocritically tell the world how wonderful Jews they are in opposing the Jewish state) On the whole however a first rate work which calls attention to one of our time's most important moral questions not only for Jews but for mankind.
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Citation Details
Title: Jabotinsky's "beast" anew.(Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism)(Book Review)
Author: Arnold Ages
Publication:
Midstream (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2004
Publisher: Theodor Herzl Foundation
Volume: 50
Issue: 7
Page: 39(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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