Criticalcompendium
Book Reviews

“In “The Great Arab Conquests,” Hugh Kennedy describes and convincingly analyzes the astonishing story of how the Arabs took over the Middle East. Beginning around 630, Arab forces burst initially into Syria and Mesopotamia, and then into Egypt and Persia. By 651, the Arabs had conquered the Persian Empire, which then stretched deep into the [...]

“Modern-day Renaissance man Antonio Monda - professor, author, editor, filmmaker and practicing Catholic - taps into his extensive network among America’s cultural elite for this compelling new book. While its straightforward subtitle, Conversations on God and Religion, plainly states what awaits between the covers, it’s the people with whom Monda converses that make this exercise [...]

“In his latest book, “Head and Heart,” Garry Wills surveys the fault lines in U.S. Christianity and argues that the real fracture is between “Enlightened” religion (of the head) and “Evangelical” religion (of the heart). Throughout American history, he writes, Christians have oscillated between these “two poles of religious attraction.” Wills is a liberal Catholic [...]

“Now, in a book written, according to its title page, “with” Roy Abraham Varghese - of whom more later - Flew tells the story of his “discovery of the divine.” This sounds like a victory for the faithful in the God wars: a welcome riposte to the atheist tomes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and [...]

“Many Westerners think the world would be safer if it were less Muslim, more Western. And in the Middle East and beyond, many Muslims are horrified by our arrogance; a tiny minority respond with violence. Yet the so-called clash of civilizations, as Zachary Karabell’s important new book demonstrates, draws strength from a profoundly partial reading [...]

“There are (Jesus Freaks other than David Koresh), though not as deadly, who are part of this fold. Falling in this category is David Berg. The son of a preacher man and woman, Berg, as described in Jesus Freaks, was a second-rate evangelist. His momma, however, had the gift, though, try as he might, he [...]

“In his provocative new study, “Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation Opponents,” James Simpson undertakes a bold reassessment not only of Thomas More as embattled “defender of the faith,” but of the English Reformation itself. His focus is quite specific; he identifies the years 1520 to 1547 as crucial. Though Martin Luther had [...]

“The Messenger cannot be considered an impartial historical biography in the Western tradition – still less an apology. Indeed, those familiar with the habitual points of Western interest in early Islam (which pretty much follows the tabloid code of sex and violence) will find Tariq Ramadan’s book a most frustrating document. Where are the pages [...]

“Martha Nussbaum straddles several disciplines, holding appointments in the philosophy department, the law school, and the divinity school at the University of Chicago. In her new book, “Liberty of Conscience” (Basic Books, 406 pages, $27.50), she reminds us that she also straddles cultural and religious traditions, having ancestors who came over on the Mayflower and [...]

“In his most recent book, “What the Gospels Meant” (Viking, 224 pages, $24.95), Garry Wills completes a trilogy, capping off “What Jesus Meant” and “What Paul Meant,” both published in 2006. All three books are informed, lucid, and accessible to general readers, but the last is the most poetic, penetrating, and moving. In “What Jesus [...]

“As a sequel to his enormously successful 1901 essay, “The Life of the Bee,” which sold an astonishing 250,000 copies, (Maurice) Maeterlinck’s 1907 essay “The Intelligence of Flowers” (nicely translated here from the French by Philip Mosley) melds religious intuition and scientific observation. He describes numerous examples of intelligence in flowers as they seek to [...]

“The author of “God Is Not Great” seems to have won the battle for World’s Best Atheist (sorry, Richard Dawkins), and here has collected a far-reaching range of likeminded nonbelievers.’ Read the review at Time Out Chicago.

John Allen Paulos is a mathematician who teaches at Temple University and also a talented popularizer. In previous books he has trained his mathematical eye on humor, the stock market and what he reads in the newspaper. Now he has taken on God. Paulos is not a credulous man. He sees things, he tells us, [...]

“Muzaffar Iqbal, who is a well-known scientist and Islamic scholar based in Canada, has written a book about science and Islam that is weighted towards the Middle Ages and has nothing to say about camel breeding or falconry. He has an agreeably caustic and aggressive approach to outdated and erroneous ideas about the history of [...]