Nine lives : in search of the sacred in modern India

 by William Dalrymple. For the last 20 years, Scotsman Dalrymple (The Last Mughals) has made the Indian subcontinent his bailiwick. In his introduction here, he describes Nine Lives as "a collection of non-fiction short stories," and he does portray the "pluralist religious and philosophic folk traditions" found in India in a way that is compelling and accessible to all readers. His subjects here are all people living on the margins: we meet a wandering Jain nun, a Tantric housewife whose abode is the cremation ground, a Sufi holy woman, a refugee from two countries, a blind Baul minstrel, and a Rajasthani bard who can recite from memory an epic of 626 pages, to name only a few. Dalrymple shows us the "lived experience" of the practitioners of these different religious paths and how their worlds have been impacted in a rapidly changing India. VERDICT More accessible but less scholarly than Wendy Doniger's The Hindus, Dalrymple's book is highly recommended for all collections. Readers will sense the power of faith underlying the divergent religious paths, with stories that are enthralling and will keep them up late reading. --Library Journal (Check catalog)

Thomas Hobbes

 by R.E.R. Bunce. As the inaugural volume in a new series from John Meadowcraft, "Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers," Bunce's Thomas Hobbes sets a high standard for future volumes. Bunce (Univ. of Cambridge) has provided a text useful for undergraduates, graduates, and faculty alike. The book includes a brief yet informative biographical sketch, an account of the development of Hobbes's civil philosophy, and a particularly valuable discussion of how Hobbes's thought was received in his own day, as well as the various avenues of interpretation subsequently developed. The discussion of Hobbes's reception and interpretation is particularly useful to students as it addresses the critiques of Hobbes made by Pufendorf, Locke, and Rousseau. The account of contemporary views of Hobbes discusses his place in the thought of important recent theorists such as Michael Oakeshott, Leo Strauss, and Francis Fukuyama as well as his continued relevance to contemporary political subjects. Bunce's volume has the particular virtue of paying due attention to Hobbes's physics as well as his politics, clarifying the frequently neglected link between his physics and his moral and political teachings. Summing Up: Recommended. All undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. --Choice. (Check Catalog)

The love response : your prescription to turn off fear, anger, and anxiety to achieve vibrant health and transform your life

 by Eva M. Selhub. Verdict: A compassionate and inspiring approach to managing stress, fear, and anxiety that underscores the connections between mental and physical health. Self-help enthusiasts will appreciate the author's nurturing tone and ability to synthesize Eastern and Western philosophies. Recommended for all libraries. Background: Selhub, an integrative health specialist and a senior staff physician at the Benson Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, offers practical and nurturing instructions, guided meditations, and imagery to invoke optimum mental states for total physical and spiritual well-being. Citing patient case studies, the author emphasizes the importance of spirituality and psychology in treating chronic health and medical concerns. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

A marginal Jew : rethinking the historical Jesus

 by John P. Meier. Meier (theology, Univ. of Notre Dame), a Roman Catholic priest and author of this work's previous three volumes, draws careful distinctions between Christology (theology) and the study of the historical Jesus (history) and between Christian ethics and Jesus's teachings about Halacha (Jewish law). Meier defines law both in intertestamental and in rabbinic Judaism while relating it to both Christian Testaments as a preliminary to a nuanced discussion of Jesus's teachings on law. Meier is forthright about the positives and negatives he uncovers that point to Jesus's provincialism and apparent lack of a system of moral values. Verdict Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars as well as educated laity may find the book interesting; it is essential reading for those focusing on its specific themes. Well indexed, this will also be useful for reference purposes. --Library Journal. (Check Catalog)

Talking with Sartre : conversations and debates

 by John Gerassi. Across almost five years, Sartre's godson Gerassi (a former editor at Newsweek) met with the philosopher monthly to discuss family, politics, theory, identity, and other topics high in the minds of both men. As recorded in this aptly titled volume, the discussions remained personable, intellectual, and well guided. Stories about Sartre's nearly lifetime companion, Simone de Beauvoir, and Gerassi's father, artist and Spanish revolutionary Fernando Gerassi, are interwoven with memoirs of Sartre's earliest childhood as well as his then contemporary travels in the Middle East. In spite of the familiarity between the two discussants, the reader feels included rather than either excluded by lack of context or in the role of eavesdropper. Sartre's wit and warmth are nicely revealed without losing his still-active and engaged theorizing. VERDICT The whole makes for an eminently readable and compelling window on 20th-century intellectual social life, as well as philosophy and politics. Of wide interest not only to scholars but also to more casual readers. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Just Love; Transforming Civic Virtue

 by Ann Mongoven. By engaging John Rawls and other ethicists who prize impartial standpoints in ethics and politics, Mongoven (Michigan State) shows how the work of caring for particular others in activities such as parenting forms individuals to participate in civic life. Proposing a notion of "disciplined vulnerability," this volume argues for citizens who can recognize moral traditions, but employ and translate them as they navigate tensions between autonomy and relatedness and between smaller communities and the general polis. The work of Mothers against Drunk Driving, an organization founded on the passion of parental love, serves as an important exemplar. This book also presents an overlong tour of liberal theory that seems to detract from its carefully constructive case. The appendix contains case studies showing how the book's argument functions in real politics, allowing Mongoven to ground her case in a way that is too rare in contemporary political theory. This interesting but occasionally meandering book makes important contributions to the debates about the tensions between love and justice, particularity, and impartiality. It models engagement across the disciplines of theology, ethics, and political theory. --Choice (Check Catalog)

Maimonides in his world : portrait of a Mediterranean thinker

 by Sarah Stroumsa. This splendid study of Moses Maimonides expands readers' knowledge of the greatest Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages and his relationship to the cultural world in which he found himself. One is used to thinking of Maimonides as a talented Jewish thinker who was well acquainted with Islamic philosophy and who often drew heavily from it. However, Stroumsa (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) demonstrates that Maimonides' involvement with his own contemporary cultural world was even more extensive than in philosophy alone. Maimonides spent his entire life in the Mediterranean region, from Spain and North Africa in the west to Palestine and Egypt in the east. Stroumsa shows how widely read and deeply immersed in this diverse Mediterranean culture Maimonides was and how he interpreted his own Jewish tradition from what he learned from his participation in the broader culture, not only with regard to philosophy and religion but also in law, ethics, medicine, and science. --Choice (Check Catalog)

The philosophers' quarrel : Rousseau, Hume, and the limits of human understanding

 by Robert Zaretsky and John T. Scott. In a remarkable salvage operation, Zaretsky and Scott rescue from the wreckage of a famous friendship the remains of two contrasting Enlightenment perspectives. Improbable from the start, the friendship of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume united a Frenchman of passionate sentiment and a Scot of tough-minded skepticism. Even in these unlikely friends' early ardor, the authors discern incipient tensions that rapidly harden into a bitter antagonism involving partisans on both sides of the Channel. The result of more than conflicting personalities, the Rousseau-Hume breakup involves different critiques of the vaunted rationality governing the Age of Reason. Making sincerity of personal feeling his mainstay, Rousseau leveled histrionic accusations against Hume so vehemently that his erstwhile friend feared for his sanity. Relying for his part on communal solidarity, Hume deflected Rousseau's indictments by strengthening his network of social ties. Though the authors favor Hume in this notorious dispute, they highlight lapses in both men's reasoning and actions. An engaging narrative showing how divergent philosophical principles play out in real life. --Booklist. (Check catalog)

World religions and norms of war

 This collection of essays provides an overview of the history of thought concerning war in various religious traditions. With each chapter written by a different author, the book discusses the following traditions: Hinduism, Theravada Buddhism, Japanese religion, Judaism, Roman Catholic Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Protestant Christianity, Shi'a Islam, and Sunni Islam. Additionally, the editors contribute introductory and concluding essays. The essays generally provide an evenhanded, detailed overview of the traditions. While there are some gaps and oversights (e.g., traditions of Buddhism other than Theravada are not discussed, the historical peace churches within Christianity receive little attention, the depth of critique of war in the thought of Pope John Paul II is not adequately presented), overall this book offers a very valuable look at the history of religious thought on war and peace. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above; interested general readers and lower-level undergraduates. --Choice (Check Catalog)

The great oom : the improbable birth of yoga in America

 by Robert Love / Eastern spirituality and Western commercialism fuse in this flamboyant tale of an iconic American guru. Journalist Love tells the story of Pierre Bernard, a yoga adept from Iowa who made a splash at the turn of the 20th century by enduring bloody piercings and lacerations under trance. His Tantrik Order of disciples in San Francisco and New York soon gained notoriety; after police raided his schools, Bernard was accused of seducing girls and conducting sacred orgies. Delighted tabloids dubbed him "The Great Oom." Bernard rehabilitated himself in the 1920s with the Clarkstown Country Club, a yoga-themed resort and rehab center for the rich on the Hudson, financed by a parade of heiresses who fell under his sway. Love makes his hero a quintessentially American character who yoked his mystic bent to a brash entrepreneurialism; with the riches he made from his yoga initiatives, he started a chemical company, an airport, a semipro baseball team with a midget second baseman, and a trained elephant act. Love credits Bernard with changing public perception of yoga from dissolute exoticism to healthful normalcy, but this colorful, frenetic tale reminds us that money is America's true religion. --Publishers Weekly. (Check Catalog)