Ethics Books

From Foreword by Dr. Elmer Towns, Dean of Religion, Liberty University:
Postmodernism is a word that is currently used by many ministers in their sermons, but not many people on the street understand it. As a result, most people are confused about it when they hear the word. Dr. Brewer has helped people understand what it is, how it affects the church, and what the church can do about it. This book will help you understand culture, and help to adapt our unchanging message to a changing world. May we all study it and understand the times.

From Foreword by Elmer Towns:
Postmodernism is a word that is currently used by many ministers in their sermons, but not many people on the street understand it. As a result, most people are confused about it when they hear the word. Dr. Brewer has helped people understand what it is, how it affects the church, and what the church can do about it. This book will help you understand culture, and help to adapt our unchanging message to a changing world. May we all study it and understand the times.

From Foreword by Elmer Towns:
Postmodernism is a word that is currently used by many ministers in their sermons, but not many people on the street understand it. As a result, most people are confused about it when they hear the word. Dr. Brewer has helped people understand what it is, how it affects the church, and what the church can do about it. This book will help you understand culture, and help to adapt our unchanging message to a changing world. May we all study it and understand the times.

Its about time that someone finally told us what to do about postmodernism rather than just what it is. This book couldnt have come out at a better time. I especially liked the acronym and the practical examples, especially Xenos, of what churhes are doing to minister to postmoderns. If nothing else, the book is worth these practical examples. I've read a number of books on the topic but this is the first to give me some ideas on how to rethink outreach.

There's not much to say. It's a great hardcover edition of a must-read for just about everyone out there. In terms of philosophical importance, the examination of this book must be included in your curriculum (be it personal or via formal education).

You can disagree with Machiavelli's take on life and politics all you like, but you have to agree that his writings are a must read for anyone even remotely interested in political philosophy.
Of course, I will never be able to read the original works (until I learn Italian), but I think the translator does a great job here. The chapter end notes are quite extensive and useful too.
Read it!

This book, which was expertly translated by Professor Wayne Rebhorn of the University of Texas at Austin, provides an excellent view of the seminal work of a Renaissance scholar: Niccolo Machiavelli. Professor Rebhorn also included a few of the lesser known works of Signor Machiavelli: The Letter to Francesco Vettori, The Life of Castruccio Castracani, along with selected excerpts from the Discourses on Livy.

Machiavelli's frequently quoted line, "It is better to be feared than loved," actually has a somewhat different meaning that is not always seen in modern times. " ... è molto più sicuro essere temuto che amato, quando si abbi a mancare dell'uno de' dua." "It is much safer to be feared than loved, when one has to lack either of the two." Which is my own translation.

As Professor Rebhorn mentioned in a lengthy and informative introduction, sometimes the translator is a traitor (traduttore tradire). Dr. Rebhorn went to great lengths to explain his own philosophy of translation, and his efforts to properly convey the Renaissance thoughts of Machiavelli into present day English. As a life-long student of the Italian language, I appreciated the detailed nature of Professor Rebhorn's premise to make the language of Machiavelli more understandable. Especially to those of us who are not Renaissance scholars.

"The Prince" should be required reading for all students of the Renaissance. As you will see, Machiavelli was more than a political figure. He was a great historian, diplomat, and son of the Republic of Florence.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this intriguing book.

The term "Machiavellian" is frequently used to describe ruthlessness and brutality in a leader, and most people who have read about Machiavelli but have not actually read Machiavelli's own works assume that he believed "the ends justify the means." However, this is a common misperception. His actual words are: "[. . .] in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no court of appeal, one looks at the outcome" (pg. 77). He does not, here or anywhere else in his writing, attempt to provide any moral justification for ruthlessness, but merely says that a leader will always be judged by his people based on the end result of his actions. He was very pragmatic in his outlook on princely rule, and sought to explain the actions that would and would not be effective in gaining and maintaining the rule of a nation.

Another point of some confusion is the saying that "it is better to be feared than to be loved." Again, this is not quite what Machiavelli meant. His actual words are: "[. . .] there arises a dispute: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the contrary. The reply is that one should like to be both the one and the other, but as it is difficult to bring them together, it is much safer to be feared than to be loved if one of the two has to be lacking" (pg. 72). It is also noteworthy to point out that the word "fear" at the time Machiavelli was alive was less synonymous with its modern meaning than it was with the word "respect." He was saying that a prince's throne is more secure if he is feared/respected but not loved than it is if he is loved but not feared/respected. Machiavelli does not say that a prince who is feared is the moral better of one who is loved.

"The Prince" is a truly fascinating work of philosophy, describing the ideal conduct (in mechanical and not moral terms) of an effective sovereign. Despite the fact that it is entirely concerned with the government of principalities, Machiavelli himself was a republican, and believed that the most effective form of government would combine elements of a principality, an aristocracy, and a democracy. His motivation to write "The Prince" came from his desire to ingratiate himself with the Medici family, the ruling power in Florence at the time, and also from his belief that only a single, strong ruler would be powerful enough to unify and liberate a then-factionalized Italy.

The book is not an easy read, but is more accessible than, say, Rousseau's "Social Conract" (I'm not equating the topics of these two books, but just comparing literary style). Machiavelli tends to use very long, complex sentences, and it's easy to get derailed before reaching the end of one. Some of his sentences easily take up a third of a page. This particular translation has made things a little simpler, and in the introduction the translator admits to breaking up some of Machiavelli's longer sentences into multiple shorter ones. The translator also includes helpful notes to supplement the text, which aid the reader's understanding. I do wish, though, that he'd placed these as footnotes rather than at the end of each chapter, since they are quite copious and having to flip back and forth after every few sentences can be distracting. Nevertheless, the content of "The Prince" is definitely worth the time and concentration it takes to read.

Readers who do not already have a detailed knowledge of pre-16th century Italian and ancient Roman history will no doubt have additional difficulties understanding Machiavelli's work. Being Italian, he used examples primarily from Italy's political history and from his studies of Rome. The translator's notes do help somewhat, but do not provide a full background. Machiavelli also, at times, misrepresents history either inadvertantly, or purposefully so as to better back up his arguments. He also has a tendency to over-simplify things, and does not take into account that real life is rarely as clear-cut as he presents it.

One thing I like about this edition of "The Prince" (2003 Barnes & Noble printing w/ translation by Wayne A. Rebhorn) is that it includes some of Machiavelli's other writings. "The Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca" is interesting for a couple of reasons. It was intended to show an example of someone who had the proper princely qualities (by Machiavelli's standards). However, to make Castracani fit more completely his conception of the ideal prince, Machiavelli fabricated many aspects of his life. This piece serves more as an insight into Machiavelli's character than as a biography of Castracani. The other writings included are a letter Machiavelli sent to his friend Francesco Vettori, concerning "The Prince," and several excerpts from his "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy," which were written at the same time as, and are supplementary to, "The Prince." At the end there is a selection of comments, contemporary and modern, from others regarding Machiavelli's writing, as well as four critical-thinking questions to help a reader better analyze the text.

While many things have changed since Machiavelli wrote "The Prince" in c.1513, much of what he says is still relevant to some degree. The basic concepts he presents can be adapted for application in just about any position of leadership. However, it must always be remembered that this book was only meant as a technical guide, and does not attempt to justify itself on moral grounds. "The Prince" is also a worthwhile read for the reason that it will give the reader a better, more complete understanding of the term "Machiavellian," and the ability to recognize when it is or isn't being used correctly, as well as the ability to use it correctly themself. This is a must-read for anyone interested in political philosophy, and has much to offer whether you agree with Machiavelli's ideas or not.

Profit for Life shatters the old paradigm that success in business means sucking the life from people and natural resources by viewing both as dispensable commodities. By showing us how success in business--including big business--goes hand-in-hand with respect for human and natural communities, Bragdon frees us from the wrenching misconception that profit and citizenship represent a kind of zero-sum game.

Bragdon unites head and heart in one of the most uplifting books I have ever read. Profit for Life offers hope with a firm footing. I recommend Profit for Life to anyone with an interest in business management, strategic investment, or corporate citizenship.

Daniel D. Dutcher, J.D., Ph.D.
Project Director
The Clean Energy Group
Montpelier, Vermont

Book Review for Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels
by Ann McGee-Cooper

How do you measure the value of servant leadership in business? How can we know it works? These have been two of the most frequently asked questions in our consulting practice over the past 30 years.

In Profit for Life, Jay Bragdon provides us with some compelling answers. He does this by setting aside much of the linear cause-and-effect thinking that drives business these days, and adopts a more rounded, holistic approach that gives us deeper insight into the firm.

The book is based on the experiences of 60 companies - Bragdon's "learning lab" - that broadly represent the industry/sector diversity of the world economy. Throughout the text he describes 16 of these pioneering companies, called the Focus Group. The distinguishing feature of all these firms is their effort to mimic living systems - in the ways they organize, manage and add value. This mental model is radically different from the traditional one that views the firm as a money making machine.

Although it may seem counter intuitive, the living system approach yields vastly superior results than the traditional one. For example, the average equity return of learning lab companies was nearly double the S&P 500 over the past decade; and their excess performance continues as this review is written. Bragdon expects such premium returns will diminish over time as the more effective methods of the living system model become copied and enter the mainstream. Nevertheless, these results are a strong affirmation of the milieu in which servant leadership normally operates.

Servant leadership, to Bragdon, is all about relationships. He says "relational equity" is the foundation on which companies build financial equity. When companies care about people and the things people care about, Employees become inspired and their inspiration cascades into everything they do, including their relationships with customers, suppliers and other key stakeholders.

The raison d'etre of these servant-led firms is value creation - value that permeates all relationships. Companies that excel at such value creation pursue a strategy Bragdon calls "living asset stewardship" (LAS). The fundamental premise of LAS is: Profit arises from life, and must therefore serve life if it is to be sustainable.

To understand the strategic value of living asset stewardship, Bragdon makes a critical distinction between living assets (people and Nature) and non-living capital assets (buildings, equipment and financial reserves). We see this in three contexts. First, people are closely bonded to Nature - genetically, physically and spiritually - in ways that capital assets are not. Second, living assets are the source of non-living capital assets. And third, because living assets are inherently creative and emergent, their value grows over time rather than depreciating as capital assets do.

The operating leverage in the learning lab and the 16 Focus Group companies resides in the human heart rather than in mechanistic financial gearing. This is supported by the fact that they generate consistently higher returns on equity while carrying substantially lower debt ratios.

Although traditionally managed companies have been adopting some stewardship practices in the past decade, Bragdon finds their approach differs fundamentally from those in his study. In the mechanistic view of these firms, stewardship is an add-on that is subservient to their drive for profit. By contrast, in companies that have adopted the living system model, LAS is deeply woven into the value creation process - reflecting the fact that they see themselves as "living" and therefore integral to, rather than separate from, Nature and society.

Profit for Life builds on the brilliant work of Arie deGeus, former coordinator of Group Planning at Royal Dutch/Shell, and Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson. DeGeus' classic, The Living Company, noted that long-lived companies had a collective consciousness, were sensitive to their environments, tried to work in harmony with the world around them, and strove to leave a legacy to future generations. Wilson tells us this collective consciousness is an expression of humanity's deep affinity for life, which he calls "biophilia," and that our biophilic instincts have evolved over thousands of generations of natural selection.

In my work as a teacher of servant leadership, I would highlight the paradigm shift Bragdon describes. The mission of leaders in LAS organizations is to serve and grow their people because that is the source of the firm's liveliness and capacity for growth. As Robert K. Greenleaf said: "The first order of business is to build a group of people who, under the influence of the institution, grow taller and become healthier, stronger and more autonomous." That seminal quote is used twice in the book to describe the power and generative capacity of LAS.

I highly recommend this book and will be using it regularly in our practice.

Ann McGee-Cooper, Ed.D., Business Consultant & Executive coach
in the field of Servant Leadership & growing Learning Organization.
Ann McGee-Cooper & Associates, Inc.

I intend to recommend Profit for Life to all my current MBA students. Next fall I am team teaching an MBA core course that combines Operations Management and Managerial Accounting. I intend to make the case that your book should be required reading and part of the course.

I became familiar with the work of W. Edwards Deming in 1990 and attended one of his four day seminars a year later. I also began to follow Peter Senge's work and later read Margaret Wheatley's book, Leadership and the New Science. Tom Johnson's book, Profit Beyond Measure, has been required reading in my Advanced Managerial Accounting elective at the MBA level.

Bragdon's book has brought the ideas, theories, and concepts discussed by these individuals together for me in a way that I could not have imagined. More importantly, he has not only taken their ideas to the next level, but done it in a way that provides a tangible blue print for how to change our current style of command and control management with its focus on profit maximization to a LAS Theory of Management.

The use of the sixteen focus companies from the LAMP INDEX and the author's ability ability to clearly show the distinctions in their style of management from the traditional management models that continue to be taught in almost all business schools, and the success these companies have achieved not just financially, gives those of us hoping to change management education and core business curriculums a new hope.

Thank you for such an outstanding book.

Joseph F. Castellano
Professor, Department of Accounting
University of Dayton Business School

This is not one of those lightweight business books that repeats its Chapter 1 message over and over. It's chock full of research-based information that anyone involved in the sustainability movement should have. The publisher is Peter Senge's non-profit, so if you're familiar with his excellent work over the years, this would make a great addition to your library. The author's passion for his subject is obvious from page one.

It is a popular belief among many that if only the Ten Commandments were posted in every school, every courthouse and other public buildings, jail houses and abortion clinics would lose the majority of their clientele.

What would a child, seeing the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me", posted on the wall of his schoolroom, envision as a forbidden god? Some strange-looking little doll?

In his third book, The Promise Restored, T. Wyatt Watkins presents a realistic concept of teaching and living the moral and religious precepts found in the Ten Commandments. Relating stories of everyday experiences with his four children, the author, as father, leads them in their inevitable ethical
confrontations with problems inherent in contemporary life. From the baptism of a new-born cousin on the deck of a missile cruiser to the covetous temptations in a family shopping trip to a mall the principles delivered to the Israelites in the wilderness are finely nuanced and appealingly portrayed for contemporary readers.

In an unusual but very convincing format the tales are skillfully told, interspersed with pertinent Scriptual excerpts and brief quotations from notable writers, old and new, in a deceptively casual style that builds toward a fascinating and climactic poignance which ends each narrative.

Watkins is a natural, a fine story teller and, as in his first two books, he again proves that the tenets of a life of faith can be conveyed as well or better in story than in much sermonizing.

This is a very fun, helpful and ambitious book. Watkins, a long time pastor who has written charming books about the foibiles (sp?) of his flock and ministry, pulls it all together here--each chapter focuses on another commandment and intersperses Bible text, commentary, quotes from all over, and modern day stories that illuminate and elaborate on the points made in the other sections. Watkins is an engaging writer who involves you with his characters and brings you face to face with the living God who still has a meaningful word to us in this modern world.
The structure of the book is evocative of Godel, Escher, Bach, but the reading is much easier! (and the content is more important--as interesting as artificial intelligence is, interacting with the author of life and intelligence in a productive way is much more important).
A great book for pleasure reading--with the added benefit of good teaching built right in, or for a small group study.

T. Wyatt Watkins' The Promise Restored surveys the Ten Commandments and their meaning to modern society. Rigid rules, often ignored in modern times, are considered in a title that encourages understanding the importance of the commands to modern life and events. Packed with intriguing insights.

What a refreshing "now" approach! Watkins has detached the Ten Commandments from the stone and has overlaid them upon the human heart. First we see the context of their application in the Hebrew community. Often wrongly presented as restrictive laws, these commandments were meant as life-giving parameters within which the community could thrive in grace. The author then fast-forwards us to "real time" where we observe how these commandments play out in the everyday life events of men, women, and children. This book helps us examine our own behaviors and attitudes in order to discover our better selves.

not just psychosis, but also delusion and paranoia. lacan's starting point is freud's case study of daniel paul schreber, and the text freud used, schreber's memoirs of my nervous illness, a book written by judge schreber 'during the last months of his confinement....an extremely trustworthy and extraordinarily composed' book, lacan said. also 'you will appreciate the courteous tone, the clarity and order.'

lacan himself was courteous, which lends emphathy to the subjects with whom he works, whether his subjects be deceased or fictional characters within some text.

lacan spoke of continuous conversation, of the internal monologue as continuous with the external dialogue, and why it is that analysts, and maybe readers, who for whatever reason read psychoanalytical textts, can say that the unconscious is also the discourse of the Other. 'if we admit the existence of the unconscious as freud elaborates it, we have to suppose that this sentence, this symbolic construction, covers all human lived experience like a web, that it's always there, more or less latent, and that it's one of the necessary elements of human adaptation. the fact that this may happen without one's knowledge might have been described as outlandish for a long time, but for us, this isn't so...'

lacan also includes within the topic of consciousness the act of reading, a form of internal monologue. and for a great many pages of this book i was aware of the ghost of kant and his phenomenon.

of course, there's much more. what i write here doesn't pretend to approach a sketch toward listening and understanding, which is what lacan wanted to teach here.

This is an essential book for understanding Lacan's overall theoretical framework. Despite the esoteric sounding title, it is not just for specialists and doesn't just treat the subject of psychosis. Lacan reviews and repeats here with greater clarity the theories he developed in his first two seminars.

The work of Jacques Lacan is infamous for the often obtuseness of its language and presentation. It is often said that the reader must work hard at Lacan to reach a glimmer of understanding. The work of Dr Russell Grigg as translator to this edition certainly gives the reader a head start. Dr Grigg address the work of Lacan from a new perspective of the 21st century, nolonger happy for the work to remain arcane and cloistered from the reading public, but he throws open the windows of further understanding for those willing to look and read closer the work of this French master. An excellent work.

Lacan's seminars are superior to his articles because he clearly is addressing an audience, and needs to make himself understood, but he has already anticipated all of his students questions, as if he could read their minds: "I know what you're thinking." The argument of the third seminar is easy to summarize: the psychotic, because foreclosed from the father, faces a hole in the imaginary that is filled by the symbolic (or is it the other way around?), hence the hallucinations and voices. The psychotic always imagines that somewhere the big Other resides, in this world, like the man who broke into the US capital because there was a time machine inside that was trying to control his mind. The psychotic is in fact unable to distinguish the small from the big other. Lacan is always thought to be a little mad himself, something of a fraud, "il gagne beaucoup d'argent," and even Heidegger gave up reading Ecrits because he couldn't make sense of it, and he does make something of a display of his learning (not so much in this seminar). That said, there is something to Lacan, and eventually he will get his due, and outside the narrow circle of his devotees.

This is truly one of the best works of sociology I have ever read. The topic and slant of the book is truly unique: that people search for and need 'community', or meaningful relationships in social groups. Nisbet tracks the decline of many of the once relevant and viable social groups, and how their position has been encroached on by the State and centralized capitalism, with a keen historical analysis. His broad and deep analysis is indeed stunning. The length of the book, around 250 pages, is also very workable. The only negative about this book is that Nisbet's prose is sometimes awkward, though at other times beautiful.

As I read this book, my mind repeatedly pulled up scenes of George Orwell's 1984. For those of you who have read 1984 and can recall, Winston is given a book by O'Brian that explains the nature of the Party, the reasons for thier oppression, the brainwashing that the Party uses to keep control, and the reasons civilization fell under despotism. The Quest for Community may as well be the book that Winston reads.

This book examines the problems created when small social groups that are intermediate between the citizen and the State become effaced in an attempt to "free" citizens from their responsibility to them. This leaves responsible to one party only, the State.

Robert Nisbet shows clearly the appeal of radical individualism and documents the history and progression of the idea. He shows how, should the State absorb the functions of the intermediate groups such as the church, the family, and the gild, the individual would be directly responsible to the State in all aspects of life.

This is a terriffic read. The only criticism I would have for it is that I felt at times it was a tad redundant, but the ideas are insightful and the logic is sound. I highly recommend this book.

Robert Nisbet (1913-1996) was one of the most important conservative thinkers in the twentieth century and this work, The Quest for Community, was perhaps his most influential. It helped spark a Renaissance in conservative thought in America, appearing around the same time as Voegelin's The New Science of Politics, Buckley's God and Man at Yale, and Kirk's The Conservative Mind. [Brad Stone, Robert Nisbet, p. xvi.]

Modern man craves community and order. As Nisbet says, modern society encourages a sense of alienation and a loss of community. Nisbet brilliantly describes how modern literature, politics and religion bears witness to this sense of alienation. If man can't find community in mediating institutions such as the church and the family, he will find it in totalitarian movements. "The greatest appeal of the totalitarian party, Marxist or other, lies in its capacity to provide a sense of moral coherence and communal membership to those who have become, to one degree or another, victims of the sense of exclusion from the ordinary channels of belonging in society." [p. 32.] War itself becomes a means of escape from the "vast impersonal spaces of modern society." [p. 34.]

In addition to describing alienation in modern life, Nisbet analyzes the ideological origins of man's loss of community. Although many paved the way for this state of affairs, the chief villain was Rousseau. Rousseau sees the individual and the state as the two most basic entities, and it is the state that reconciles the conflicts between men and within man himself. [pp. 125-28.] The state "frees" man by destroying his allegiance to intermediate social institutions, thereby freeing him for service to the General Will.

This is the most important work I read in 2001. I would say that it ranks with Prof. Martin van Creveld's masterly The Rise and Decline of the State as one of the most important works on the theory of the state in print. Coincidentally, I reviewed that work exactly one year ago today.

The book reads like a contemporary critique of our society. When I discovered it was written in 1953, I realized I was holding the works of a true prophet. Nisbet predicted and explained the developments of our times.

I particularly appreciated his explanation of what happened to the power held by a non-government institutions (e.g. the church) when it declined as an institution. The answer was that a small part was given to individuals and the rest went to the central government. Hence the odd paradox of ever increasing individual freedom in the face a dramatic increase in the power of the central government. Both individual and state were taking power from community institutions, however unequal the division.

Directing his book to the academic world, Proctor presented the medical and biomedical communities as the propelling forces behind Hitler's holocaust. After explaining the historical origins and context of Nazism, Proctor provided an illuminating examination of the obscure, complex role of Nazi medical science and "applied biology" in the development of Nazi public health policy and the implementation of Nazi atrocities. Proctor disclosed how the medical profession, motivated by politics and a lust for power and prestige, used science to produce knowledge to be used to the detriment and even the destruction of others. Proctor's comprehensive assessment also revealed international influences (normally erased from American history books!) and scientific "evidence" which contributed to the scientific and political views that helped shape Nazi medical culture, and political and racial policies of the Third Reich. Proctor detailed Nazi programs involving racial purification, sterilization, women's rights, euthanasia, and scientific experimentation as examples of how politics shaped the practice of science. Proctor also detailed the resistance to the onslaught of Nazism by the Association of Socialist Physicians, the most organized form of medical opposition and how German medicine might have evolved had history taken a different path. Proctor concluded with an epilogue on postwar legacies and detailed the events that occurred to those involved in the implementation of the Nazi public policies including the transition of prewar "racial hygiene" into postwar "human genetics". ("amedard" aka "djondjon")

I read this book after Peter Sichrovsky's 'Schuldig Geboren' (Born Guilty) about the offspring of noted Nazis. The connection? A whole lot of the latter were descended from Nazi doctors. Many of them were themselves in or studying medicine, and the claim was made repeatedly of the huge following of the whole medical profession for Naziism. And why not?, the Nazi doctrine itself can be rendered by the phrase 'racial hygiene'! Imagine having a whole political movement willing to empower physicians, give them their heart's delight for social prestige and influence (in funded public health measures) and eliminate a huge fraction of their competitors/rivals (Jewish doctors) to boot? But did you know that the inspiration for a lot of Hitler's measures (from anti-alcohol measures to restricted immigration, to sterilization of 'undesirables') came from the USA? Frightening how close our two systems could be.

The book is one of the best-- and not only because it is meticulously researched and written, but because it does not stint at showing that the most respected and supposedly wisest of men can, in their own folly, commit unspeakable crimes. And that science can justify these crimes. It is one of the most powerful arguments against the idea that mankind has progressed that I've read of late.

What were the scientific views of the followers of Nazism and what scientific "evidence" helped them to decide public policy? Author Robert N. Proctor does an excellent job answering these questions.

I've been looking forward to the publication of this book ever since I heard it was in the works two years ago. It was worth every bit of the wait. It's an excellent companion to Walters and Portmess Ethical Vegetarianism, but it's also a fine book by itself. It discusses religious justifications of vegetarianism from a number of religious traditions. I was especially intrigued by the discussions of Xtian and Jewish vegetarianism. I always thought that there was no spiritual support in these two traditions for vegetarianism, but now I see that this is plain wrong. In fact, Both Xtianity and Judaism have a long tradition of compassion for animals. You just have to do a little reading between the lines. If you're looking for a spiritual grounding for your vegetarianism, get this book. It's great!

This book is a breath of fresh air. All we hear about today when it comes to religions is how they breed intolerance and violence. That may be so for the most part, but Religious Vegetarianism shows the other side. All the major world traditions also have a core of peacefulness and love that extends to humans, animals, and the earth itself. This book shows one way that this core works itself out in practical terms--through what the authors call religious vegetarianism. I give it four starts instead of five because it doesn't discuss paganism, which is the most eco-sensitive of all the world's religions. But it's still a very good read.

For those of us who think that killing animals for food is a violation of deep spiritual laws, this book is a Godsend. At this time, when war and destruction seems right around the corner, beginning to practice nonviolence in our daily lives seems like a good idea. This book helps us along the way. It's a very good partner to Portmess and Walter's earlier book, Ethical Vegetarianism.

This book is an eyeopener. For the vegetarian as well as the nonvegetarian. It gives a good account of how different religious faiths around the world and across time have preached a meatless diet. It's pretty well known that buddhists and hindus preach vegetarianism, but I was particularly interested to learn there is a strong tradition of vegetarianism in the Jewish and Christian traditions.

This is for those who wish to take the long lens, and an extremely academic, look at the public discussion of sexuality in 19th century America. Those who are looking for an, um, less academic study need to look elsewhere (titillation it is not). Horowitz demonstrates a thorough analysis of her subject, but presents it without becoming too bogged down in particular statistics. NIce job presenting the spectrum of thought in the 19th century while also connecting the course of history with the 18th and 20th centuries. Although a lot of her story is focused on NYC, the country at large is not forgotten. A book that delivers as advertised.

Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz says that she was puzzled by the stir in 1994 when Joycelyn Elders made a mild comment mentioning that masturbation might be taught about as part of sex education in schools. Our nation is used to hearing daytime talk show chatter about sexual abuse, homosexuality, prostitution, and more, but mentioning this universal and enjoyable practice as something that should be taught about (the religious right twisted her words into "should be taught") was enough to get Elders fired as Surgeon General. Why was there such a hysterical reaction to a mention of masturbation? Horowitz is a historian, a professor of American studies, and the one thing she could do to find an answer is historical research. She has done a mountain of it, looking into obscure court cases, journals, and newspapers, to produce the monumental _Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth Century America_ (Knopf). As the title reveals, Horowitz has not just covered ideas about masturbation (although ridiculous fears of that "evil" seem to have percolated through the minds of every parent and preacher of the time), but has covered the huge topic of what our predecessors thought about many aspects of sex.

The evangelical Christian movement sweeping across the country in the first half of the nineteenth century seized upon such worries about masturbators and lustful women, and "sinful lust became a chief way of comprehending sexual desire." The American Tract Society was particularly vehement on such issues, and was aghast at the scientific understanding of sexual function that was beginning at the time. Especially important was the protection of female virginity, and fear of pregnancy was a vital shield of the nation's maidenheads. Physiological explanations of birth control were seen as a special danger; unimpeded by fear of impregnation, there was no telling what the women would get up to. Tractarians saw the freethinkers who promoted sexual knowledge as blasphemers. Nothing shocked them more than the non-religious (and it was generally the freethinkers who promoted the spread of physiological ideas) insisting that women had similar sexual desires and need for satisfaction as men, or that birth control would promote happiness, health, and economic freedom. It is surprising that the Young Men's Christian Association looms large in these pages. The YMCA had as a goal the promotion of evangelical religion, and during the Civil War, it was worried about Union soldiers, displaced from home, and in 1865 the YMCA was able to advocate for a post office bill that would forbid mailing erotic prints and books, the first time the federal government tried to regulate moral content of mailed material. The anti-sex activities of the YMCA were linked to the famous and foolish reformer, Anthony Comstock, whose censorious aims even kept birth control information out of medical texts.

Horowitz has summarized four "frameworks" out of the confusing discourse about sex during the period. The Vernacular Tradition consists of sexual information (and misinformation) passed generally by word of mouth. Evangelical Christianity hated lust and equated most sexual activities with sin. Reform Physiology looked to the science of the body (often composed of wildly inaccurate assertions) to promote sexual freedom, and sometimes sexual restraint. And then there were Utopians, who thought sex was the central part of human existence and should be untouched by the government. These four voices, in the printed works and journals of the time, often overlapped and swamped each other with rhetoric. The huge number of philosophies and personalities which played a role in the debate, and made a foundation for our current sexual ideas, are brilliantly distilled into this large, well-referenced book, which is an entertaining academic tome without ever being fusty or tedious.

This book is an educational, informative study of America's attitudes towards sex during the 19th century. The author's thorough research and interesting approach (taken from four very different perspectives, depending upon gender, profession, and philosophy/religion) offer a unique explanation and understanding of how Americans viewed sex during the 19th century. I was surprised by how much information (though much of it is incorrect, such as the "fact" that women who are raped cannot become pregnant because they do not feel passion during the rape) there was available to 19th century Americans about this taboo topic. Some of it was not a surprise (the whole male sporting culture, which was adopted as a Victorian moral code for men and women in which men are permitted and encouraged to have as many sexual relationships as possible whether they are married or single and in which women are to be kept ignorant of their husbands' (and fathers', brothers', etc.) relationships or, if they are aware of them, they are to turn a blind eye, yet absolute fidelity on the part of the females is required. It sets up an illogical double standard--who are these men having sex with if women are to remain virgins until marriage and faithful after marriage?) Other parts were a surprise--the concept of "free love" appeared much earlier than I thought and censorship appeared much later than I thought. The reasons for turning to the courts and for using censorship were also explained, with thorough detail about how mores changed as the century progressed, and the full impact of the Industrial Revolution made its mark on every aspect of Americans' lives. Horowitz shows how, with the Industrial Revolution, work changed, and young people left home to work in larger cities. Without parental/familial or community (religious) control or guidance, young men experimented with sex and young women were also now subject to sexual pressures and temptations. Horowitz also makes an interesting connection between the censors' fears of sexual information, particularly about birth control and abortion, and the dangers of having and using this information. Also discussed in great detail is why this particular group feared, above all, giving women (both married and single) any information which would help them limit the size of their families, despite very compelling arguments from opponents about the hardships faced by parents who could not afford to feed a large family yet lacked the information to limit family size and arguments about how important it was for the health of the mother (and her family) that she should not have 12 children in 12 years. Horowitz states firmly that it was the fear that these women, if they knew of ways to prevent pregnancy or that they could have an abortion, would all cheat on their husbands! Fear of pregnancy, they reasoned was the only thing that prevented female infidelity! In this area, I think that Horowitz did not go far enough. Undoubtedly this was the concern stated by the pro-censorship faction, but underlying this was the larger issue of inheritance. At this time in American history, only males inherited property from their fathers (married women were legally not permitted to own property--everything they brought to the marriage, i.e., the dowry, became their husbands' property once they were married) and only legitimate children (i.e., children born of the marriage) could inherit. Illegitimate children had no rights whatsoever (inheritance-wise). It was a very frightening thought to men that their wives could be unfaithful to them, could become pregnant, he could end up raising an illegimate child! This is also what was driving the double standard--men could be permitted to have as many extra-marital affairs with prostitutes, mistresses, etc. because their behavior did not affect the inheritance laws. If a man had 50 mistresses and 500 children outside of his marriage, none of those 500 children could claim any rights to parental obligations/duties or to inheritance. The only ones who could inherit were a husband's male issue born of the marriage. The extra-marital behavior of the wife, however, was another matter entirely. No man wanted to see his property go to an illegitimate child, so this added an additional "control" on female behavior, just in case fear of pregnancy was not enough.
This book is very well researched and well-written. Academics and non-academics alike will find it easy to read, theories are set out and backed up with research and facts, and many of the stranger mores associated with the 19th century explained. It makes an interesting study for anyone who has ever wondered how and why Americans came to be so schizophrenic (using sexual images to sell everything from cars and copy machine toner to chocolate, yet there was a huge fuss a few years ago about a billboard that showed a woman nursing a baby) about sex during the 20th century because it shows that Americans were equally conflicted about sex during the 19th century, and had not resolved those issues. Highly recommended.

This marvelous books contains lots of surprises: that legal censorship of written material about sex came later in the 19th century than I had suspected; that "scientific " reformers who believed that disseminating informaton about sex appeared on the scene earlier; and that the perception that masterbation was a threat to American society came not from religious fundamentalists but from the scientific theories of some of these same reformers. Elegantly written, and brilliantly researched, this book is a must for anyone wanting to understand the strange cross-cutting attitudes about sex in contemporary America.

A necessary companion to 'Eichmann in Jerusalem.' I concur to an extent with the reviewer below regarding Jerome Kohn's introduction. One should definitely start with the first chapter, "Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship," before reading Kohn's piece, as it clarifies some of the confusing aspects of Kohn's argument.

Responsibility And Judgment is a collection of previously unpublished writings from the last decade of the life of editor and World War II survivor Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). Chapters wrestle with complex moral issues and philosophical questions both in general and in relation to specific events such as judicial trials of World War II criminals and the repercussions that America's failed war effort in Vietnam had on the nation's policies and psyche. Written in clear, no-nonsense terms, Responsibility And Judgment is as accessible to lay readers as it is to philosophers, and offers its insights free from the constraints of political ideology. Highly recommended.

Hannah Arendt has always been one of my favourite writers. This volume collecting her works does not disappoint.

However, do not expect the same incisive and indepth look into the pressing ethical issues here. This is not the fault of Hannah Arendt. This is afterall a collection of bits and pieces of her works, put together not necessarily in a coherent way.

Nonetheless, this book is worth a read, particularly as it condenses and crystalises some of the thoughts contained in her other, longer, and more difficult to read books. Next to her "Men in Dark Times", I would recommend this book as a good place for those unfamiliar with Hannah Arendt to begin.

However, do ignore the introduction by Jerome Kohn, which is rather a rather incoherent, bitter, and ranting little piece of work, attributing to Hannah Arendt thoughts and opinions that might or might not have been hers. It is better for the reader to judge for himself or herself as to what Hannah Arendt meant to say, and not left a lesser mind to colour the reader's perceptions.

Given that none of the editorial reviews on this page contain a table of contents, I decided it may be wise to copy it here:

Introduction by Jerome Kohn
A Note on the Text
Prologue
I. RESPONSIBILITY
Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship
Some Questions of Moral Philosophy
Collective Responsibility
Thinking and Moral Considerations
II. JUDGMENT
Reflections on Little Rock
The Deputy: Guilt by Silence?
Auschwitz on Trial
Home to Roost

The first part deals with somewhat abstract questions, whereas the second is an application of Hannah Arendt's moral and more generally philosophical considerations to real-world situations. The fundamental text contained in this volume is "Some Questions of Moral Philosophy", which is based on four lectures Arendt gave in 1965. In it, Arendt deals with Socrates, Immanuel Kant, Paul of Tarsus, Augustine of Hippo, and Friedrich Nietzsche while discussing thinking, willing and judging. Also of note is Arendt's examination of Dr. Franz Lucas's case (described in "Auschwitz on Trial"). In a nutshell, this is a very interesting, though somewhat mixed and slightly repetitive, collection of essays, speeches, and lectures by a significant Selbstdenker.

Alexandros Gezerlis