A story of dedication and love. A young man graduates from Princeton: He’s a freshly-minted second lieutenant with dreams and aspirations for his future. He gets married and ships off to an international conflict-zone; and within months he is promoted to Battery Executive Officer. During his tour of duty in Korea he writes 171 love letters to his new bride. These letters sparkle with humor and devotion; but as the months progress; the letters also reveal a growing maturity both as a leader and as a husband. Love Letters from the Front will inspire anyone facing hardship and challenge that those ordeals can fortify character and produce fresh leadership strength.
#356987 in Books Norenzayan Ara 2015-08-25Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.80 x .70 x 5.70l; .0 #File Name: 0691169748264 pagesBig Gods How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict
Review
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful. Good book with some limitsBy E. N. AndersonThis is a very rare book: a popular book about religion that actually builds on Durkheim's and Weber's demonstrations that religion is about society; morality; and solidarity--not a failed attempt to explain the universe; not the result of eating funny mushrooms. Norenzayan (a psychologist) builds on his and others' studies of religion to show how it creates and maintains social solidarity and morality. Big societies create big gods (universal; powerful; omniscient ones) not only because the societies are big but also; more to the point; because they have to integrate vast numbers of people who don't know each other. People in such societies need a big god to unite them; watch them; and scare them with divine sanctions--the studies show all these things are important.However; Norenzayan is serious wrong in maintaining that moral gods did not exist before big societies (civilized; state-level ones) arose. He draws on a very thin anthropology; mostly the San and Hadza who are all too familiar to anthropologists working on social evolution. The San and Hadza are very simple groups without moralizing gods. They are; however; not some arrested dawn-age people. They are relict societies--tiny groups pushed into the rocks by agricultural people. The San; at least; had far more extensive and complex societies earlier; as we know from their extensive rock art (some of which I have examined in Botswana). Of groups less relictive--notably the Australian Aboriginals and the North American Native peoples--many or most have highly moralistic religions in which spirits enforce the rules by divine punishment. Norenzayan's only real evidence on the subject is Christopher Boehm's survey of 18 "foraging" societies (see p. 126) that showed little moralizing in their religion. Several of these are part-societies or refugee societies. Others were just plain badly described; ethnographers are strangely uninterested in morals and ethics; and rarely bother to investigate these. (The only really good; thorough account I know of that describes a small-scale society's ethics was done by an ethical philosopher: HOPI ETHICS by Richard Brandt.) Today we are getting more and more accounts by Native American and Aboriginal Australian anthropologists; and they invariably emphasize the ethical and moral side of their cultures; including their religions. (See e.g. the works of Richard Atleo; a Nuuchahnulth anthropologist.) Earlier autobiographical accounts such as those of the Sioux thinkers Black Elk and Lame Deer do the same.Norenzayan's anthropology gets him in trouble in regard to world religions too. Like almost all writers on world religion; he knows the Abrahamic ones and not the others. There are two pages (fortunately very accurate; thanks to a helpful colleague) on China; a few odd bits about "Hinduism" (a religion invented by British colonialism); and essentially nothing about Buddhism--a polytheistic religion which elevates an enlightened human (the Buddha) over all the gods. Having spent many years in polytheistic societies; I find this a serious lack. A final bit of oddness is Norenzayan's idea (p. 191) that "science" is strictly from the ancient Greeks through the medieval Muslims to the modern west. This is so hopeless it defies comment. Suffice it to say that China not only kept up with the west; but was influenced by it; up until the late middle ages (if not later). Greece was not isolated or alone. And of course the Maya developed highly sophisticated math; astronomy; and agriculture and architecture without the Greeks.All this does not really devastate the main message of the book; though. I wish Norenzayan had done his anthropological homework; but he's still basically correct; with the qualification that it's only the morals for large-scale; complex societies that had to be watched over and enforced by large; complex gods. Durkheim pointed out that the pantheon of a society usually replicates the authority structure of that society pretty faithfully; and enforces its morality in about the same way the real-world pantheon does--but with more supernatural power. As Norenzayan correctly and insightfully points out; it can do this by engaging people's intuitions; emotions; and needs for solace; security; support; and a sense of control. The very real congregation does this more than the imagined gods do; what matters is that it gets done. Norenzayan also correctly points out (again on the basis of many scholarly studies) that religion both unites and divides; and that as an expression of the total society it is pretty well bound to have the same mix of love; help; cruelty; and harm that society does. (Incidentally; I wonder why all the people who dump on religion for starting fights don't dump on sex; money; and other much commoner reasons for fights. The early Christians did indeed dump on sex for exactly that reason. And of course G. W. Bush's "crusade" in Iraq was really over oil; not faith--just as the original Crusades were over loot more than over religion.).Norenzayan asks; finally; whether we can live without religion. I doubt it. Something has to link solace; support; and respite with social morality. Communism and fascism; the modern substitutes for religion; do the opposite. Labor unions and similar secular societies did the job--copying religion quite consciously--but are not flourishing today.3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Excellent compendium of research on religionBy LaneThis is an exceptional book that brings together and analyzes a large amount of research on the topic of religion. It is well written even if sometimes redundant; and a surprisingly easy read for such a complex topic. I am recommending it to all my friends interested in the ways that religion and religious people have and are influencing our world...a condition of real mystery to many of us!0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A scientific investigation neither "for" or "against" religionBy Paul BeierThis is the first time I encountered a scientific investigation of religion based not on interpretation of religious texts; but rather on contemporary studies of human behavior and interpretation of well-documented historical evidence. The book is neither "for" or "against" religion -- just a fascinating account of how religion (probably) evolved and its good and bad effects on human behavior and societies.
