Book Reviews

While a devout fan of British spy novels in general and John le Carré in particular, I think he really overdid it in his latest novel, Absolute Friends. It is confusing, inept and cut short halfway through the events when things just begin to get interesting. (It beats around the bush even more than The…

by Berel Dov Lerner, Maoz Azaryahu, and Jason Jungreis The following letters were sent to the editor regarding Matthew Abraham’s review of Norman Finkelstein’s Beyond Chutzpah in the Fall, 2005, issue of Logos (issue 4.4). Click here to read his review. Professor Abraham’s reply to his critics can be read in the Winter, 2006, issue…

Material Reviewed: Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, (New York: Penguin, 2005) Jeffrey Sachs, et.al., “Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” (New York: UN Millennium Project, 2005), www.unmillenniumproject.org Jeffrey Sachs, et.al., “Ending Africa’s Poverty Trap,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1 (2004), 117-240, www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/about/director/publicat.html…

These Are The Times That Try Men’s Souls” (Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, December 23, 1776) In dark times hard-pressed people frequently fall into cynicism and, ultimately, nihilism. An infectious despair can persuade many citizens to accede to authoritarianisms of various stripes. But some exceptionally hardy spirits nevertheless manage to generate hope – moreover, hope…

An American president on a mission to fulfill Biblical prophecy.  His diplomats at odds with him and viewed as out of touch with the electorate by Congress.   A press corps less concerned with investigative journalism than feeding ‘ and appeasing ‘ popular biases.   A body politic, fed by Sunday School images and millenarian forecasts, accepting…

Revolutions are not child’s play, nor are they academic debates in which only vanities are hurt in furious clashes, nor literary jousts wherein only ink is spilled profusely. Revolution means war, and that implies the destruction of men and things. -Mikhail Bakunin, quoted in Paul Berman,Quotations from the Anarchists (1972) There are two reasons to…

At the height of the Vietnam War a sly Harvard law student addressed an assembly of parents and alumni. “The streets of our country are in turmoil,’ he said. “The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might. And the republic…

Thiscurious new novel is closely fitted to the bare bones knowledge of the actuality of the life of a world-famous mathematician and physicist, and for some years the head of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Dublin: Erwin Schrödinger. For Belton’s work is an odd literary amalgamation: deeply thought with some fine writing at times…

Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press,by Kristina Borjesson, Revised and Expanded Edition, Prometheus Books, 2004 This collection of essays and articles is intriguing and irritating in almost equal measure. The inside stories of life in the news media are revealing: they show how many sectors of the American media are…

John Rose’s The Myths of Zionism (2004) is a long overdue book fearlessly examining the strategic, historical and ideological roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a true tour de force. Most books on this fraught subject tend either to be inquiries into the international forces behind the conflict, devoid of historical depth, or else are reportorial…