The New Atheist Crusaders
My friend Rich over @ Theocentric.com told me that a quote from one of my essays from SoMA found its way to Becky Garrison's book The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail: the Misguided Quest to Destroy Your Faith. Look for it on page 59. I have not read the book yet, so no comments on my side about context or ultimate conclusions of Garrison's analysis; however, Rich's always insightful review can be read here.Mao’s Myth - The Long March
Separating truth from friction is the keystone upon which insightful biographies and relevant histories need to be built, an endeavor never more fraught with difficulty than when the subject of the historian’s gaze is the centerpiece of a nation’s heritage and founding myth or an individual’s ascent to historical significance. Certainly no country is without its own mythology; most have elaborate ensembles of cultural myth which serve to introduce children to the country’s basic goodness and remind adults of the country’s endearing principles in their idealized form. In Sun Shuyun’s new book, The Long March: the True History of Communist China’s Founding Myth, she gracefully but forcefully goes back and re-examines the foundational myth surrounding the Peoples ...Book Review - Boeing Versus Airbus
My most recent book review on John Newhouse's Boeing Versus Airbus: the Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business has been published by Asia Times and can be read here.Joshua Kurlantzick & China’s Soft Power
My review of Joshua Kurlantzick's new book, Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World, has been published at Asia Times and can be read here. A quote from the review: Loitering throughout Kurlantzick's analysis of China's ability to employ soft power is the painful realization that the US has squandered much of its own accumulated soft power. This strength, the product of a country that has embodied some of the greatest insights into human governance and which chose to interject itself successfully into two World Wars in the last century, has been severely damaged through policy missteps that Kurlantzick traces back to the administration of president Bill Clinton. The "flat world" of globalization, so stridently ...The Case for Religion
My friend Rich @ TheoCentriC has a review of Keith Ward's book The Case for Religion. I'll have to admit that I'm intellectually prejudiced against anyone using Lee Strobel's format of The Case for X as indicating a good apologetic text is soon to follow, but I always enjoy Rich's commentary and trust his perspective and insight. From his review: “A convergent spirituality becomes possible in the modern world, which is not an agreement on doctrines or practices, but is an acceptance that many diverse paths of prayer and meditation converge upon one supreme reality of wisdom, compassion and bliss. That, it may be felt, is the heart of true religion” (232). If we ...Book Review: God is Not Great
This then becomes the great prize of humanism, and consequently that which religion most fears, that man should see his own errors for what they are and all that is and see himself as the only savior he will ever have. While we may have need of divine intervention, in much the same way as we may need another deposit in our bank account or a mentor to speak to the errors of our ways, such need has no relevance to what is, what was, or what might be. That religion makes so much of what was and what is yet to come is to suggest, as Hitchens does, that it might not be worthy of entrusting with ...Book Review - In China’s Shadow
Books on China tend to be fairly mono-chromatic and one-dimensional; occasionally a truly original work comes to light which has something important to say about US-Sino relations. Reed Hundt's very important and quite insightful book, In China's Shadow: the Crisis of American Entrepreneurship is one such book. My review of his book can be read at Asia Times here.Book Review: US National Security and Foreign Direct Investment
For too long, the business community has seen China either as a source for low-cost exports or the most lucrative un-developed domestic economy the world has to offer. While neither is wrong, to be successful China’s business will have to mature, and in the act of maturing challenge many US firms on ground once thought impenetrable. This book is just one part of the more complex set of questions which are evolving and must be understood regarding how China’s regional champions are re-vamping their strategies and looking for more mature mechanisms for accessing North American markets. To the extent a discussion over Chinese FDI into the US serves the purposes of stimulating such a discussion, this book ...Top 10 Books of 2006
2006 may have marked my favorite year in terms of reading selections. It has been a pleasure to explore more philosophy, although I was not able to make the effort to access all of the masters' work first-hand as much as I had hoped at the beginning of the year. A number of books were left out that deserved to be mentioned including Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, some great books on contemporary politics (Cobra II, Fiasco, Conservatives Without Conscience, and The One Percent Doctrine), and some really great biographies (Mao: the Unknown Story, Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueld His Greatness, Team of Rivals: the ...Updated End-of-Year 2006 Bookshelf
My updated EOY 2006 bookshelf can be found here. UPDATE: Due to a server deletion, this post does not have all active links. « Previous EntriesAbout MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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