"To Be Read" Book Review Column

Overview

Book reviews by Professor John "Jack" Becker.

: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng; A Novel

JUN 27, 2007 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: Dave Eggers. "What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng; A Novel."

Autobiography or novel, this is the harrowing story of Deng's flight from the holocaust in Sudan, under constant threat of bombings, beasts, and human murderers, ...

Gods War: A New History of the Crusades

MAR 20, 2007 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: Christopher Tyerman, "God's War: A New History of the Crusades"

Tyerman lays out the New Testament tradition at the beginning of his treatise on the Crusades, raising the immediate question: how did Crusaders manage to ...

The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council

JUN 1, 2004 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: Andrew Greeley, "The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council"

Andrew Greeley reappears now at a moment when I, and I suspect others, really need him, addressing a question that has been bothering me for ...

Wild Nights: Nature Returns to the City

MAR 1, 2004 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: Anne Matthews, "Wild Nights: Nature Returns to the City"

This is an environmental jeremiad with a difference. No complaining here, no direct appeal for a harmony between humankind and nature. Matthews’s eye is ...

Rocks of Ages: The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister

JAN 1, 2004 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: Stephen Jay Gould, "Rocks of Ages. --The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox"

It seems a good idea to distinguish science and religion as two separate, mutually non-interfering teaching authorities. Popular science writer Stephan Jay Gould (1941-2002) suggested ...

Darwin

DEC 8, 2003 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: David Sloan Wilson, "Darwin's Cathedral"

Religion, I think most of us would say, isn't about much if it isn't about belief in a personal God... Religion is founded on the ...

NOV 3, 2003 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: Andrew Bacevich, "American Empire," Amy Chua, "World on Fire"

Bacevich argues that America is an empire on the basis of the events of recent decades. His narrative argument is nicely complemented by Chua’s ...

The West and the Rest

OCT 1, 2003 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: Roger Scruton, "The West and the Rest"

Scruton contrasts the structure of Western political life with Islam. Islam then becomes his paradigm for “the rest.” In the West, he says, religion and ...

SEP 1, 2003 Article

"To Be Read" Book Review Column: Jonathan Bate, "The Song of the Earth," Lawrence Buell, "Writing for an Endangered World"

Is there an environmental role for nature writing whose aim is primarily esthetic? Is there a role, in other words, for esthetic experience in the ...