Provisional
Truth | Book Reviews by Keith Hazelton
Provisional
Truth | Book Reviews | May 2007 |
Link
Dark Ages America :
The Final Phase of Empire
by
Morris Berman, April 2006
 And
the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons. If this
biblical prophecy holds true, than we as Americans are now reaping
the ill-effects of those transgressions of our forebears, mostly of
the last 60 years following World War II, the origins of which trace
to the end of the nineteenth century. I am speaking of the empire
known as The United States of America, and, if the current
scholarship of Morris Berman is to believed, it is an empire, as all
eventually before it, in decline.
Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire
is Berman's latest assessment of the state of the American
Empire and goes far to explain exactly why we so uniformly
are despised around the world. In a carefully constructed
thesis, bringing to light the underside of American history
never taught in any school, Berman depicts an American
nation that has surpassed its ability to change, and, thus,
as all empires past, most notably the Roman Empire, is in an
inevitable process of decline and fall.
On
that cheery premise, Berman sets about deconstructing the
myths we have been taught about the American empire and why
"this time" it is different. In the end, he presents a
stark case of a nation marching on until its bitter end
unless radical changes are made in American politics,
economics and entertainment.
Few countries ever have been able to stand down successfully
from empire. Britain, for one, dismantled its global empire
over half a century beginning in the 1900s, and most
recently the former USSR more abruptly fractured into its
individual republics in the early 1990s, wisely disengaging
from the Cold War and leaving the US without a nuclear
sparring partner. (Russia eventually may be reseated
at the adults table, along with China, given its vast energy
resources.)
Continue reading this
Book Review>>
Provisional
Truth | Book Reviews | November 2006 |
Link
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy,
July 2006
  "A long shaft of light followed by a
series of low concussions" is the entire description of a
calamity that has befallen humankind. Cormac McCarthy's
post-apocalyptic saga offers little explanation as to what happened
or why, but rather follows a man and his young boy and their
efforts to survive in a resulting dead, ash-covered, cloud-darkened world.
The cause is left to the reader's
imagination: whether all-out nuclear war
(Armageddon?) or
perhaps a massive asteroid impact, Earth has been subjected to the
ravages of nuclear winter, in which
chiefly from lack of sunlight virtually all plant, animal and marine life
eventually has perished, and the
remnant of humankind survives by scavenging preserved foods and
canned goods - and by cannibalism - for a few years with only fading hope
for some better future and dimming memories of an idyllic past to separate
them from the many who in despair took their own lives.
Continue reading this
Book Review>>
Provisional
Truth | Book Reviews | September 2006 |
Link
Why The Christian Right Is Wrong:
A Minister's Manifesto for Taking Back
Your Faith, Your Flag, Your Future
by Dr. Robin Meyers, April 2006
  Dr. Robin Meyers, progressive
minister of Mayflower Congregational Church (United Church of
Christ) in Oklahoma City, expands upon a speech delivered at an
interfaith peace rally at the University of Oklahoma in November
2004. That speech was transcribed and posted on the internet,
where, at the speed of light, it circled the globe and put into
words what so many people have been feeling.
Dr. Meyers rips into the Jesus-as-superhero
image prevalent among “Left Behind” series readers and other
“chosen” who see the world in the simplistic overtones of
the present administration and the leader of the free world
who have divided humankind into the good guys and the
evildoers, those who either are with us or are for the
terrorists.
Continue reading this
Book Review>>
Provisional
Truth | Book Reviews | August 2006
|
Link
The Long Emergency:
Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the
Twenty-
First Century
by James Howard Kunstler, April 2005
  In a straightforward, logical,
non-hysterical manner, author James Howard Kunstler puts
forth the distinct possibility of a century of radical
change in America and the world as we come to grips with a
post-petroleum-era future and which he has christened
The Long Emergency.
Over a period of decades – hence the long
emergency – Kunstler envisions the demise of our
automobile-dependent society as a finite supply of petroleum
becomes to expensive and rare for ordinary citizens and
becomes the catalyst for sweeping changes in almost every
human endeavor.
Continue reading this
Book Review>>
Provisional
Truth | Book Reviews | July 2006
|
Link
Running On Empty: How
The Democratic and Republican
Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans
Can Do About It
by Pete Peterson, July 2004
  Pete Peterson, former Secretary of Commerce
under Richard Nixon and a founder of The Concord Coalition,
presents a factual summary of how both Democrats and
Republicans – our elected representatives in Washington –
have in the last 25 years propelled our country to the brink
of bankruptcy through unbridled spending and tax cuts funded
by increases in the national debt.
That debt – approaching $9 Trillion and counting, of
which half is privately held – more and more is owned by
foreigners (foreign governments). Of the $4 Trillion or so
of privately held federal debt – more than half now is owned
by foreigners, crossing over the 50% mark in 2004. We are
ever-more dependent on foreigner “investors” to sustain our
standard of living, our government expenditures, our tax
cuts, our military adventures and our way of life as never
before in the history of our country.
Continue reading this
Book Review>>
Provisional
Truth | Book Reviews | June 2006
|
Link
The End of Faith:
Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason
by
Sam Harris, August 2004
  Sam Harris, now completing a
doctorate in neuroscience, offers a well-researched warning to the world
of the ill-effects of religious fundamentalism – of any stripe – in an
era of weapons of mass destruction. Harris' potentially bleak view of
the future of the human race centers on how religious extremism sets the
stage for a potential disaster should unaccounted former Soviet Union
atomic warheads, or other chemical and biological weapons, ever fall
into the hands of those willing to use them in an effort to turn
back the calendar a millennium or two.
The unfortunate conclusion to this well-written book
is that the world's religions are irreconcilable, principally the
sky-god Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and are
following what may become a destructive course of irrational
violence that jeopardizes the future of humans as a species.
Continue reading this
Book Review>>
Upcoming Reviews
  
   
The Chalmers Johnson "Empire Trilogy"
     
Top
Home
|
