International Reviews

As a pastor who has just completed preaching through the 2nd half of the book of Isaiah (chaps. 40-66 ) I would emphatically endorse this commentary to anyone studying through Isaiah. The commentary is very practical and gives insights into the text that are profound in my opinion. Very readable and refreshing-here is an OT scholar that actually believes in the unity of Isaiah!

This commentary is by far more useable than either Young's 3 vol. set or Motyer's commentaries, both the TOTC and the IVP volume although these can be used as supplements to Oswalt.

Having just completed my study of the book of Isaiah, I have to say that I am a little shell-shocked. The depth and breadth of Isaiah's vision is breathtaking, and he is a master in communicating that vision. Much of this is evident even to a layperson like myself, but I cannot overstate the value of a commentary such as this to assist in grasping the extended themes of judgment of the faithless, redemption of the faithful, a promised Messiah, the incomparable faithfulness and glory of the living God, etc.. or how their historical significance has application to my life today.

I worked through two commentaries in my study - Edward Young's three volume set (the original NICOT offering) and Oswalt's two volume set. Without going too far into comparing them, I will say that I found Oswalt's volume to be considerably more accessible to the layperson while still impressively scholarly in tackling the textual controversies which are rife in Isaiah scholarship.

Oswalt's commentary lies in the evangelical tradition of Biblical scholarship, which means that he accepts the scriptural and traditional testimony of Isaianic authorship for the complete book, and also that his interpretation falls within the historical Christian paradigm.

He is generous in drawing from liberal and conservative studies together for interpretation of the text while at the same time very penetrating in his analysis and criticism of the a priori arguments raised by liberals in rejection of Isaiah's authorship of the whole book.

But I found most valuable the heightened vision of God and his glorious Messiah, along with the challenge to myself to seek to live a godly life before him which Oswalt has imparted to me through this commentary. I heartily recommend this commentary to all who want to understand the book of Isaiah, the Bible, and above all, their relationship God.

I work in a multinational company and am in daily contact with colleagues and clients abroad. They come from r&d, marketing and sales. When I read the book, everything clicked. All of a sudden, I understood why problems dealing with contracts, managing time and solving conflicts had arisen in the past. "Border Crossings" also gave me some good ideas about how to solve intercultural conflicts. When I first started out, I needed a dictionary to understand the language. Now that I understand the language, I need a cultural interpreter to figure out what the words and behavior really mean. "Border Crossings" is my interpreter.

Anyone in either Israel or the US that is interested in working with a factor from the other country cannot afford not to read this book. It has nothing to do with intuition or intelligence - the differences can only be learned, either through tiresome and costly experience or through reading Border Crossings.

I grew up in Boston in the 40's and 50's, Roxbury actually. I left in 1959 when I was 19. I view it as having escaped. The neighborhood was virtually all Irish Catholic.

My parents, while not active in party politics were very politically conscious. There political philosophy was quite simple. Roosevelt's Democrats walked on water; the Republicans were for the rich and against the poor (we, of course, were poor). To this day, over 43 years after leaving their house, I have a bit of trouble pulling the lever for a Republican candidate.

As I grew older I realized that their philosophy, which was generally shared by all in the neighborhood, created problems such as complacency and corruption. In our neighborhood the Boston police from Station # 9 made no effort to conceal what they were doing while they picked up their payoffs from the many bookie joints along Dudley Street. Whenever the state investigated a corrupt official or the very corrupt Boston Police Dept. my mother would say that it was just the Republicans taking their revenge on good Irish Catholics. Somehow she always knew that these good Irish Catholics went to mass every morning. The corruption and incompetence in front of her made no difference in her thinking.

Professor O'Connor's book helped me understand how my parents came to develop these political attitudes. Much of what he talked about still existed in the Boston Irish neighborhoods while I was growing up. I suspect to some extent it still does. I just finished reading "All Souls: A Family Story From Southie" by Michael Patrick McDonald. This is a very sad story which shows just how much the Irish Catholic's in South Boston have allowed their communities to degrade and allowed themselves to be snowed by their own Irish Catholic politicians.

If you have any interest in Boston political history or Irish American history you will love this book. I'm sure that the history of the Irish in Boston is similar to the Irish in most major US cities.

From their persecution and famine in their homeland, to their struggles at survival in America, this book traces the history of Boston's largest and most vocal inhabitants. O'Connor does a remarkable job in tracing the numerous stuggles the Boston Irish faced, and how it shaped their attitudes today. The book is loaded with anecdotes and tales from of Boston more famous characters: from James Michael Curley to Bill Flynn. The book, by detailing the Irish political machines at the turn of the century, provides us with the mindset that has controlled Boston politics for over a century. Entertaining throughout, it is scary how much about Boston and its politics one can learn.

Dr. Barker's fascinating work chronicles the efforts of a tiny nation to overcome environmental devastation at the hands of the United States. The challenges faced by the Marshallese people include environmental contamination from carcinogens such as nuclear waste (from American testing of nuclear weapons) and PCBs (from multinational corporations).

Despite the misery and devastating caused by their supposed protectors (the U.S. government), Dr. Barker accurately describes the boundless determination, decency and generosity, which the Marshallese people share with all.

As Dr. Barker correctly notes, this resiliency will prove essential to the citizens of the Marshall Islands as they continue to face critical challenges such as economic globalization, nuclear and environmental remediation, and global warming. Any of which, could prove catastrophic in the decades to come.

Dr. Barker has told a story that most Americans never learn, and our government still tries to hide: that the U.S. tested nuclear weapons with full knowledge that the Marshallese people would be affected by the fallout and associated radiation. Using innovative anthropological oral history and linguistics analysis techniques, Dr. Barker demonstrates how the Marshallese have endured the physical, political, and cultural impacts of the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program on Bikini and Enewetok, and developed institutions and cultural adaptations to advance beyond victim status. A must-read for any serious scholar of the Cold War and its human consequences.

I fully agree with the earlier reviewer. "Breakdown" is one of the seminal pieces of economic & political theory of the 20th century.

And perhaps one of the most prophetic. Originally published in 1957, Kohr draws a map of a "broken down" Europe -- that is, a Europe composed of much smaller units than the then-Great Powers -- that would be easier to unify. Much of that map, particularly in Eastern Europe, has come true. Many of the parts that aren't yet independent have growing independence movements. Still, even as these movements re-draw the map, Europe has indeed crept closer and closer to unification, just as Kohr predicted.

From the depths of the Cold War, this was an extraordinarily uncommon leap of analysis to make.

Recommended in the highest possible terms.

Kohr calls for peaceful dissolution of nation states into smaller independent entities which can network or confederate as they choose. His book is a bible of the radical decentralist movement and applauded by anarchists, libertarians, greens alike. It's a fascinating read and will make you realize how much you yearn to belong to a real community and not just be an anoymous cipher in a giant nation state. Quote from Kohr, to give you a flavor:          There seems to be only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness. Oversimplified as this may seem, we shall find the idea more easily acceptable if we consider that bigness, or oversize, is really much more than just a social problem. It appears to be the one and only problem permeating all creation.Whenever something is wrong, something is too big.  And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the fever of aggression, brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations have been welded onto overconcentrated social units. That is when they begin to slide into uncontrollable catastrophe. For social problems, to paraphrase the population doctrine of Thomas Malthus, have the unfortunate tendency to grow at a geometric ratio with the growth of the organism of which they are part, while the ability of man to cope with them, if it can be extended at all, grows only at an arithmetic ratio. Which means that, if a society grows beyond its optimum size, its problems must eventually outrun the growth of those human faculties which are necessary for dealing with them.         Hence it is always bigness, and only bigness, which is the problem of existence. The problem is not to grow but to stop growing; the answer: not union but division.  

"Breaking the Cycle" is a much-needed antidote to the "We are the world syndrome" which compels otherwise well-intentioned liberals to believe that dropping western troops into nasty third world impasses with no defense apart from sidearms, blue helmets and harsh language is an adequate approach to peacekeeping.

Just inventing a new term or two (such as "Operations Other than War") will not suffice - if we are to continue trying to cut Gordian knots such as Kosovo, East Timor and Rwanda all over the world, we have to develop an approach which both works and is logically consistent. That is the task undertaken by Breaking the Cycle's editors and their co-authors, a number of young military officers and political theorists - they have developed the available knowledge and thinking about peacekeeping operations into a phenomenology of political unrest which causes nations to devolve into chaos and a methodology of how to arrest the chaos and restore nations to peace.

The most admirable tenet in common to the phenomenonology and the methodology developed in this book is the long-needed observation that before the peace can be kept, it must be made. And given co-editor Roderick von Lipsey's occupation (he is a serving officer in the United States Marine Corps), it is comforting but scarcely surprising that the methodology described in Breaking the Cycle for peacemaking involves the same theory that rests at the base of recent American military thinking - bring more than enough troops, weapons, and logistic support to do the job - to subdue ALL of the warring parties in the regional conflict being considered - and make sure that the political support necessary to support the peaceMAKING operation exists BEFORE committing troops to action.

After the salient points of the theory of how regional conflicts occur are considered and the new theories of how to end these conflicts effectively are outlined, the remainder of the book is given to chapters (each written by an individual co-author or co-editor of the book) describing actual attempts at peacemaking and/or peacekeeping from recent history. These analyses are consistenly sharp and cogent and serve admirably to illustrate the points made in the earlier discussions.

Even though I had issues with some of the discussion chapters, I gave this book a perfect score because its central premises have been too often neglected by people in decision-making roles. More books of this sort are badly needed, and more people need to read them.

The people who design and control "peacekeeping" operations overseas should have to read Breaking the Cycle and tested on its contents before they are allowed to put troops in harm's way. The rest of us should read Breaking the Cycle because it gives the careful reader such a clear picture of how nasty regional conflicts evolve and how they must be handled.

Truly, a try-before-you-buy look at a serious scholarly work. A cutting-edge idea in book marketing. Go see this book at www.breakingthecycle.co

Breaking the Heart of the World is the most complete study of Woodrow Wilson and the "League Fight" since Thomas Bailey's Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal and WW and the Lost Peace. Professor Cooper eloquently retells the events from Wilson's return from Paris to his infamous stroke, and finally toward his fall from grace. Cooper has read everything and includes everything that is important to the fight. No one knows Woodrow Wilson better. And what you take away from Breaking the Heart of the World is a better knowledge for why the United States did not join the League of Nations in addition to an understanding of Wilson's personality and immense intelligence and foresight. Indeed Wilson saw that need for a League of Nations. America was just not ready for an international league to enforce peace. World War Two would make this clear. Professor Cooper also presents an unbiased account of Wilson. Wilson has been lauded and excoriated by historians. Cooper avoids both and instead presents the matter critically.
Also recommended: The Warrior and the Priest (John Cooper's dual biography of Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt), Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Progressivism (Arthur Link's important volume in the New American Nation Series), Woodrow Wilson: Revolution War and Peace, by Arthur Link. These are all important books about Wilson and the Progressive era.

Professor Cooper's book is an essential volume in the study of an exceedingly important historical event: the failure of the United States to join the League of Nations. Cooper is incredibly unbiased in his approach neither totally defending Wilson nor constantly excoriating him. Breaking the Heart of the World extends deeply into the League debate and is a masterful example of historical research. There are so many players and therefore numerous sources to analyze in addition to the prodigious volumes of Wilson's own papers. Cooper has synthesized these and provided his audience with a rare and exceptional analysis of the events leading to the failure to join in an international League of Nations, followed by Wilson's repudiation, and more than a decade of international isolation.

This is an excellent book to help guide a student through the upper division mathematical courses.

Simply a must for any upper division math student or any one heading into rigorous theory.

To reclaim its legacy as a paragon of plurality, argues a research associate at Georgetown's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Lebanon must first climb out of the morass of "isms" into which it has devolved through decades of civil strife and the meddling of others. Though relatively short, Dagher's book covers a lot of ground. It contains a historical overview of Lebanon's myriad communities as well as an analysis of the development of their mutual distrust. By exposing the nation's self-destructive, inter-communal misconceptions, the author aims to dispel them. Among her allies she numbers no less a figure than Pope John Paul II, whose 1997 visit to Lebanon is stirringly described by Dagher, who shows him standing outside a cathedral (with the sun setting into the Mediterranean as a backdrop) and imploring the country's youth to "bring down the walls erected in the painful past". Those walls, in the author's view, are founded on dogmatic ideologies: sectarianism, Maronitism, fundamentalism, pluralism, and pan-Arabism, to name a few. With unabashed passion, Dagher warns that if Lebanon fails in its multicultural mission, it spells doom not just for a nation uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between Christianity and Islam, but for the entire Levant, which looks to the "country of Cedars" as an oasis in a desert of expanding fanaticism. Her book is a model of engaged journalism, combining thorough research with intensity derived from a personal connection to the subject matter. Quoting numerous Christian and Muslim leaders who stress the importance of preserving diversity, she proves that pluralism is not her ideal alone; it is Lebanon's. Documenting the nation's efforts before and after the civil war to build a model democratic society of diverse sects, she makes a convincing case that the current chronic discord is an aberration. A tougher read for the casual Middle East reader than, say, Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989), but far more penetrating and therefore a must for the expert.

"Bring down the Walls" is a truly unique contribution to the understanding of the sublime mosaic that is the Middle East. The author delves with expert understanding into the complexities of Lebanon's post-war efforts to renew itself and rejuvuate intercommunal relations. Unlike many other writers who approach Lebanon with a snide cyncism and stereotypical images of religious and political groups, author Dahger treats her subject with a compelling sense of humanity, realism and dignity. Combining her honed journalistic skills with an obvious scholarly aptitude, Dagher offers the reader that rare literary opportunity: to learn and enjoy at the same time. The book is replete with incisive first-hand accounts of dramatic efforts to rebuild the shattered spirit of Lebanon, and in particular that of its ancient Christian community. With equal skill and finesse,the reader is effortlessly transported inside the walls of the Vatican to listen in on the great deliberations of the historic 1995 Synod for Lebanon, or to Damascus and the discussion between the US Secretary of State and the President of Syria over Lebanon's future, or to Pope John Paul II's emotional and triumpiant 1997 visit to Lebanon; listen to the author's words, "The Popemobile dived into the bubbling cauldron of the jubliant crowd. It was strewn with rose petals and rice. His face turned red by the sweltering heat of May and by the emotion,the Supreme Pontiff scanned with tenderness and attention the faces and hands lifted toward him. He opened the window and reached out to a a child." (p.189) Not only is this a book sparkling with an abundance of literary gems, but it is an important and timely contribution to the fundamental issue of nation-building. Pluralism, civic society, the role of the military, consenual democracy and institutional governance are seriously treated within the Lebanese experience, but are clearly applicable to any society coping with religious, ethnic and racial diversity. So at one level, "Bring Down the Walls" is an unsurpassed examination of the recent trails and tribulations of the Christians of Lebanon, particularily the Maronite Catholics, at another level, it suggests a blueprint for Lebanon's spiritual and intercommunal revival, and finally it provides a universal message, through the prism of Lebanon's long ordeal of suffering, that speaks to the values of tolerance, diversity and co-existance. I highly recommend "Bring Down the Walls" as an historical account of significant events hitherto ignored, as a political and social analysis of modern day Eastern Christians and their role in the great issues of the Middle East and Islam, and as a moving and personal tribute to Lebanon, a land of martyrs, a land of heros.

Cris Shore has written a quite outstanding book on the European Union, showing how its leaders aim to create a single European state.

The EU's founders warned us that they sought to destroy the sovereignty and independence of its member states. Jean Monnet wrote, "Everyday realities will make it possible to form the political union which is the goal of our Community and to establish the United States of Europe." Konrad Adenauer said that the original proposal for pooling French and German steel production was "first and foremost political, not economic. This plan was to be the beginning of a federal structure of Europe."

Later, Chancellor Kohl said, "In Maastricht we laid the foundation stone for the completion of the European Union. The European Union Treaty introduces a new and decisive stage in the process of European Union which within a few years will lead to the creation of what the founding fathers of modern Europe dreamed after the last war: the United States of Europe."

In practice, the EU has already gone far towards creating a new state, although it has signally failed to create one that is honest and democratic. As Shore writes, "To most critical observers it seems quite evident that the European Community has acquired most of the characteristics of a state, however much some might wish to deny this." And, "with its single currency, its Central Bank and treaty control over money supply and borrowing, the EU takes on the powers of a sovereign state, albeit a transnational state without a democratic government." As Pascal Lamy, Delors' chef de cabinet, admitted, "The people weren't ready to agree to integration, so you had to get on without telling them too much about what was happening."

The Committee of Independent Experts reported in 1999 that fraud, cronyism, mismanagement and cover-ups were rife in the European Commission, summarising, "It is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility." Shore concludes that the Report "exposed ... the extraordinary degree to which patronage, fraud and corruption ... had become established, even institutionalised, within the Commission."

Chris Shore's "Building Europe" is an innovative study of the European Union, and should be taken seriously. Shore is one of the first to jump in the post-EMU debate: now that Europe has almost completed Economic Union, what are the expectations, challenges, and impossibilities with regard to further integration? Shore offers a systematic discussion of the role of 'culture' in the European Union. How has a European identity been created, or not!, among both citizens and civil servants in Brussels? Shore turns out to be quite critical in the end. Europeanism is not strongly rooted among the peoples of Europe. And the elites in Brussels are far from what a perfect European bureaucrat must be like. He concludes that the goal of European federalism, which so strongly depends on some form of common European identity, may be one bridge too far. To conclude, Shore's informed and refreshing perspective on the actual challenges to European integration forms an important contribution to the debate. Anyone who wants to think of tomorrow's Europe may probably want to read "Building Europe", no matter if you agree or disagree with Shore's final conclusions.