We live in a profoundly spiritual age--but in a very strange way; different from every other moment of our history. Huge swaths of American culture are driven by manic spiritual anxiety and relentless supernatural worry. Radicals and traditionalists; liberals and conservatives; together with politicians; artists; environmentalists; followers of food fads; and the chattering classes of television commentators: America is filled with people frantically seeking confirmation of their own essential goodness. We are a nation desperate to stand on the side of morality--to know that we are righteous and dwell in the light.Or so Joseph Bottum argues in An Anxious Age; an account of modern America as a morality tale; formed by its spiritual disturbances. And the cause; he claims; is the most significant and least noticed historical fact of the last fifty years: the collapse of the Mainline Protestant churches that were the source of social consensus and cultural unity. Our dangerous spiritual anxieties; broken loose from the churches that once contained them; now madden everything in American life.Updating The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Max Weber's sociological classic; An Anxious Age undertakes two case studies in contemporary social class; adrift in a nation without the religious understandings that gave it meaning. Looking at the college-educated elite he calls "The Poster Children;" Bottum sees the post-Protestant heirs of the old Mainline Protestant domination of culture: dutiful descendants who claim the high social position of their Christian ancestors even while they reject their ancestors' Christianity. Turning to "The Swallows of Capistrano;" the Catholics formed by the pontificate of John Paul II; Bottum evaluates the early victories--and later defeats--of the attempt to substitute Catholicism for the dying Mainline voice in public life.Sweeping across American intellectual and cultural history; An Anxious Age traces the course of national religion and warns about the strange angels and even stranger demons with which we now wrestle. Insightful and contrarian; wise and unexpected; An Anxious Age ranks among the great modern accounts of American culture.Praise for Joseph Bottum and An Anxious Age: "An Anxious Age is bound to be viewed as a classic of American sociology--not only because of its vast knowledge of historical facts and personalities; its depth and multiple layers of meaning; but also because of its literary elegance and imaginative structure. Bottum offers a wholly new way of understanding religion in public life today. The magical trick Bottum works when he asks 'Where did the Protestant ethic go?' is nearly breathtaking." --Michael Novak"A poet and critic and essayist with a sideline in history and philosophy;" Joseph Bottum is attempting "to wrench the true complexity of faith back from the complexity-destroying context of contemporary political debates." --New York Times"Joseph Bottum is the poetic voice of modern Catholic intellectual life. His work . . . shaped the minds of a generation." --National Review"One of America's most gifted writers; with a perfect ear and a matchless style." --Andrew Ferguson"A fierce critical intelligence and a terrific sense of the comedy of errors we call the human condition." --Paul Mariani
#432968 in Books Anchor 1997-05-19 1997-05-19Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.20 x 1.05 x 5.45l; .81 #File Name: 0385482329416 pagesGreat product!
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Engrossing; enlightening; and even funnyBy SteveIn her autobiographical “Red China Blues;†author Jane Wong does what the much more vaunted Jung Chang and her similar “Wild Swans†did not. Specifically; she injects much-needed humor and self-effacement along with the obligatory tale of hardship during China’s Cultural Revolution. To be fair; Wong also plays things almost problematically middle-of-the-road; never fully condemning Mao’s edicts nor providing readers; especially bewildered Westerners or seething Chinese the kind of good vs. evil narrative that Chang does. In fact; she gets downright wistful for Mao’s socialist extremism as she frets about the dramatic economic changes that transform China following “The Great Helmsman’s†passing.Yet; I’m giving her a pass for several reasons; mainly that her honesty is never in question. She tells things as she saw them and doesn’t spare self-condemnation. While she does blame the propaganda she eagerly devoured at the beginning for the climate of frenzied paranoia that defined the Cultural Revolution; she admits that she was a true believer in the promises Mao made. She ends up sadder but wiser even as she strives to make it clear that she doesn’t regret much from her years in China; and I respect that level of personal integrity. Whereas Jung Chang railed at Mao for turning her into a bad person; Jane Wong takes the blame for willingly being duped.Engrossing; particularly when describing the rigors of life in rural China or the Tiananmen Square nightmare; Wong uses the skills she has as a journalist (and the rigorous journals she kept during her years of indoctrination) to give the reader a genuine first-hand experience. The book tails off a bit during the post-Tiananmen chapters; wherein she chronicles the economic changes in China during the era of Deng Xiaoping; but it’s still an interesting look back at the antecedents that have led to today’s economic circumstances in China. There are a lot of books about the Mao years and their effects on individual Chinese people; yet this is one that not only provides insight; but also a sense of wry humor to what is often written of in angry; bitter; and stark terms.7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. A must read for anyone interested in China.By fdoamericaNothing is at it seems. Jan Wong; a teenager during the Vietnam era; was dissatisfied with capitalistic Canada and radically sought change. For Wong the truth was to be found in Mao's 'little Red Book' and her reading room was to be China.Looking back twenty-five years and with 20/20 hindsight; Jan Wong takes us into the dragon's lair revealing both her youth's ideology and Mao's China gone by. For many who remember the 60's and early 70's you will understand how she could turn her back on the comfort and freedoms of her home in Canada; renouncing all; and go to live in Mao's China. For fourteen years; with a religious; fanatical devotion; Jan Wong dedicated her life to become a missionary of Mao.Her red world crashed around her in 1976; the year when the cultural Revolution and Chairman Mao died.. All of her sacrifice; all of the suffering she went through as a worker-peasant were for naught; as China drastically discarded Mao's ideology and moved towards a hybrid capitalistic communism. She felt betrayed; suckered and stupid; "I vowed I would never again suspend my disbelief. I promised myself I would question everything. I became a skeptic."Her opportunity to question everything came when the New York Times hired her as a Journalist in its Beijing office.Jan Wong's on site coverage of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 2600 Chinese citizen's in 1989 stands out as one of the best on site reports I have read on the subject. Even Mao; in his 40 years of rule; did not turn tanks on his own people; but Deng Xiaping slaughtered his own people to keep his grip on Communist power. She writes; "The guns at Tiananmen Square killed my last illusions about China."This book is a must read for anyone traveling to China today. It does more to help you understand the current history than a dozen guide books will.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. excellentBy zhanglebinI teach high school Chinese. In at least three documentaries that my class watched; Jan Wong was interviewed. I thought; "Who is this Jan Wong?" The book was excellent. She has seen and experienced so much of China's modern history with her own eyes and ears; living through the Cultural Revolution...watching the Tiananmen Massacre take place from her hotel balcony. I have tremendous respect for her as a person and I also respect her opinions and evaluations in terms of what she imagines China's future will look like. Her stories are always dusted with a bit of humor; as well. I am a huge fan of this book and of Jan Wong.
