Dec 09 2010
Last Man Standing was a wonderful look into the life of Jamie Dimon. Although the book makes him out to be a charismatic, can’t-do-anything-wrong CEO, the author is keen on showing his flaws as well. Of course, his recent success has overshadowed his weaknesses but nonetheless, Dimon appears to be a man on a mission. His managerial acumen is second to none and is something to admire and look up to. It’s no wonder that his team of executives love working for him!
Great book to read if you’re interested to learn how to manage not just a big company but it’s also a good lesson on how to manage situations that don’t go your way.
What do I need for this new horse?
Okay well my family and I are purchasing a horse this month. I just need to know what else I may need to take care of him. Here is what I already have:BridleAll Purpose SaddleWithers padFleece padQuilted padRubber snaffleWhite Polo WrapsSplint bootsLeather halterLead ropeStirrup leathersStirrup ironsRunning MartingaleStanding MartingaleWater Standing Martingale All BucketSalt lickMuck BucketForkHeavy rugFly sheetGirthLunge lineWhole grooming kitJodhpursLace up Devon bootsHalf ChapsHelmetLet me give you some background information. The horse’s name is Moki and he is a gelding. I live in Colorado. He will be kept in a pipe pen that has about a 40-50 foot area. I jump and am planning to go over 3 ft this year. He’s a chestnut with 2 small socks. I am still growing so I didn’t think it was a good idea to purchase a hunting show jacket if I am just going to grow out of it. Moki is on supplements to keep his health up and his owner had kept him barefoot his whole life. Even while jumping cross country. So is there anything else vital that I need? And can I get any advice from you already horse owners?
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The most recent review before mine has the spoiler that I am about to discuss and it is about Web London’s being hypnotized. I picked up on that quite awhile before it was revealed but there were still many surprises and complexities to the plot that at the end of the day had me involved and intrigued. Baldacci creates a host of rich characters in “Last Man Standing”, and I am quite surprised at the relatively weak rating it has here. I mean it is a true page turner, and I can’t see how many readers would disagree with this fact. Although many obviously have. Maybe not Baldacci’s best novel, but far from his worst as well.
Unbelievably bad. Many of the characters have laughable names, there’s repetition of the plodding plot for readers too dumb to keep up, a lot of it is predictable and the writing is so bad there are exclamation marks sprinkled here and there to remind you that you should be excited. Appalling even for trash airport fiction. As another reviewer alluded, I spent time watching my bare in-flight seatback which was considerably less teeth-grinding an experience. Shame you can’t rate a book with no stars.
Web London’s FBI Hostage Rescue Team is lured into a trap, caught in a crossfire and slaughtered. He is the only survivor.
One witness to the team’s massacre is a ten year old named Kevin Westbrook. He’s the younger brother of a drug dealer named Big F. After the shooting, Kevin disappears.
Knowing that he needs to deal with the emotional effects of the loss of his team members, Web goes to a psychiatrist, Claire Daniels. As he tells her about his past, we learn of the anguish and the guilt that he feels that he’s alive and couldn’t do anything to save his team mates.
FBI supervisor, Percy Bates meets with Rancall Cove, the undercover agent who was giving officials details about what the building contained, that was the subject of the raid. Cove suggests that one group is controlling the Oxycontin flow from rural areas to the major cities in the East Coast. Cove believes that the drugs could be coming from small pockets in Appalicia.
I enjoyed the book and feel that Web London is one of the author’s better protagonists. He’s easy to sympathise with, compassionate, and dedicated. The interaction between Web and Claire Davis was well done and left me hoping for more.
The author also provided a number of plot twists that caught me totally unaware.
It takes a while to get in to the plot, but once it does, don’t plan anything.
This books showcases the plight of the Gypsies throughout Eastern Europe, which is a subject I didn’t know I was interested in until I read it. It is well-crafted and well-written, beginning with the smaller ways they are disenfranchised and leading up to much worse persecutions. I read it in three or four sittings and found it quite absorbing. If you like anthropological or cultural studies, you will be interested in this book. If you like compelling case studies of complex social problems, you will like this book. If you simply like stories of travel to exotic locations, you will enjoy this book.
The book is a welcome window into the world of the Roma people for anyone interested in learning more about their way of life and about their history. I found the explanations about some of their rituals particularly interesting. In light of the current persecutions happening in Europe against the Roma people, this book is very important for the rest of us to understand more about them. Through understanding, I hope, we will begin to bridge the great chasms of ignorance that give rise to racism, ethic crimes and other hateful actions and ideas. I would have liked to have learned more about the “Devouring”. I found it ironic that the author complained how little has been written about the Roma murders under the Nazis as compared with the plethora of writing concerning the Jewish people murdered, that I expected more to be written in this book about this period. Overall, I do believe that this tome adds to the current world many good points and questions to ponder. Thank you for having written it Miss Isabel Fonseca.
Reviewed by C.J.Singh (Berkeley, California, USA)
GYPSIES, the long-lost children of India, number about 12 million
worldwide. In Europe, the 8 million Gypsies constitute its largest
minority. Films like Tony Gatlif’s “Latcho Drom: A Musical History
of the Gypsies from India to Spain” (1994) and books like Isabel Fonseca’s
“Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey” will help ensure
that the Gypsies do not again disappear — outside the world’s
consciousness.
“Bury Me Standing” — the title comes from the Gypsy saying, “Bury me
standing, I’ve been on my knees all my life”– is a compassionate book
about a marginalized and much-maligned people. Nonetheless, over the past
seven centuries, the Gypsies have made many contributions to European folk
music, dance, and lore. An outstanding example of these contribitions
–Flameno– highlights the Cannes award-winning “Latcho Drom .”
When Isabel Fonseca, an American journalist and former assistant editor of
the Times Literary Supplement, set out to write this book in 1991, she
“had in mind that the Gypsies were ‘the New Jews of Eastern Europe.’”
After four years of field work that included living with Gypsy families in
many European countries and researching library documents, she concluded
that the Gypsies “alongside with the Jews are ancient scapegoats.”
Traditionally, Gypsies did not keep any written records. The research on their origin
began with a philological analysis of their language, Romani, which has been firmly
established as a Sanskritic language. Words like dand, (tooth), mun,
(mouth), lon, (salt), akha (eyes), khel (play) are identical with those in
Punjabi spoken in northwest India. Fonseca does not comment on the obvious
resemblance with Punjabi, presumably because of her unfamiliarity with it
or any other modern Indian language. She is also puzzled by the Gypsy
habit of shaking head side-to-side to signify yes. This distinctive
gesture alone suffices to pinpoint their India origin — rendering all
linguistic evidence redundant! If confirmation were needed, it would be
readily provided by the Gypsy music’s use of the Indian ragas such as
Bairavi, Mulkausa, and Kalyani as well as the bol (the rhythmic syllables
— tak, dhin, dha — imitating drum beats).
Fonseca seems to think that the current scholarly consensus is that the
Gypsies are from the Dom group of tribes, still extant in India, making
their living as wandering musicians, smiths, metalworkers, scavengers, and
basketmakers. They migrated first from northwest India to Persia in 950
A.D. at the invitation of Shah Behram Gur. As recorded by the contemporary
Persian historian Hamza, the Shah “out of solicitude for his subjects,
imported 12,000 musicians for their listening pleasure.”
Fonseca errs in stating that the Gypsy designation for themsleves as Roma
is derived from Dom, one of the outcaste tirbes in India.
Roma is a variation of “ramante,” a Punjabi word meaning moving, wandering. T
This etymology is cogently discussed in W.R. Rishi’s book “ROMA: The Panjabi
Emigrants in Europe, second edition,” published in 1996 by Punjabi
University Press, Patiala, Punjab, India. Rishi traces the origin of the Roma to
the 500, 000 prisoners of war taken by Muhamad Ghaznvi in 1001 from the
Punjab to Afghanistan and subjected to Islamic conversion by the sword.
Many of them resisted by escaping westward to the Christian lands of
Armenia and Greece. To this day, the Roma use the word Gajo, derived from
Ghazi– the Koranic title of infidel-killing Muslims– as a disparaging
term. The Roma are from the warrior castes of the Punjab.
The Roma appeared in Europe first in 1300 A.D., fleeing from forcible
Islamic conversions by the Turks. In Europe, ironically, they were accused
of being advance spies for the Turks, and persecuted again. They were also
mistaken as Egyptians, whence the folklore origin of the term Gypsy.
The history of the Roma in Europe, gleaned, for the most part, from court-
and church-records and from rare academic publications, is a
horror–Europe’s heart of darkness. One of the examples Fonseca cites is
the 1783 dissertation published by Heinrich Grellman of Gottingen
University. In his book, Grellman describes an event of the previous year
in Hont county, Hungary: “The case involved more than 150 Gypsies,
forty-one of whom were tortured into confessions of cannibalism. Fifteen
men were hanged, six broken on the wheel, two quartered, and eighteen
women beheaded — before an investigation ordered by the Hapsburg monarch
Joseph II revealed that all of the supposed victims were still alive.”
During World War II, the Nazis exterminated 1.5 million Gypsies. At the
Nuremberg trials, the Nazis’ lawyers argued that the killing of the
Gypsies was justified since they had been punished as criminals, not as a
race. There was no one to speak for the Gypsies, and the international
tribunal accepted this as exonerating defense! Ah, humanity.
Although tyrants, bigots, and the misinformed have often stereotyped the
Gypsies as congenital criminals, sociological studies show that the
Gypsies commit crimes no more than others. A large-scale study cited by
Fonseca: In Romania, which has the largest Gypsy population of any
country, out of all criminal convictions that of the Gypsies total 11
percent. Their population in the country? Exactly 11 percent.
In recent decades, a Gypsy intelligentsia has begun to emerge. Fonseca
presents detailed profiles of several. Dr. Ian Hancock, an American Gypsy,
and the author of “The Pariah Syndrome,” was instrumental in bringing about,
in April 1994, the first-ever Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C.,
on the human-rights abuses of the Gypsies. After prolonged efforts,
Hancock also succeeded in the Gypsy inclusion in the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. Gypsy inclusion had long been opposed by Elie
Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner! It was only after Wiesel’s
resignation, writes Fonseca, herself an American Jew, that one Gypsy was
allowed onto the museum’s 65-member council. (The council comprised more
than thirty Jews as well as Poles, Ukranians, and Russians among others
but not a single Gypsy.)
Saip Jusuf is the author of one of the first Romani grammars and a
principal leader in Skopje, Macedonia, which has the largest Gypsy
settlement anywhere. Jusuf helped organize the first world Romany Congress
in 1971 in London. The conference was financed in part by the Government
of India, and at its urging the U.N. agreed first to recognize the Rom as
a distinct ethnic group and several years later accorded voting rights to
the International Romani Union.
In an interview with Fonseca, Jusuf, having converted from Islam to his
ancestral Hinduism, joyously displayed his new icon collection of Ganesha,
Parvati, and Durga . Ramche Mustupha, a poet, showed his passport. Under
“citizenship,” it recorded Yugoslav; under “nationality,” Hindu. The lost
children of India, having found their ancestral land, are very proud of
its ancient civilization — the oldest continuous civilization in the
world — “Amaro Baro Thanh” (Romani for “our big land”). Fonseca observes:
“Many of the young women, fed up with the baggy-bottomed Turkish trousers
they were supposed to wear, have begun to wear saris.”
Unlike other beleaguered and marginalized minorities, the Roma are not
seeking a homeland of their own, a Romanistan, in or outside India. The
Roma are resisting, as they always have, to maintain the freedom for a
life-style of their choosing. “To allow this to the Gypsies,” Vaclav
Havel, in Prague, said, “is the litmus test of a civil society.” However,
Havel’s is a lonely voice. All over Central and East Europe “Death to the
Gypsies” graffiti can be observed. Since the Velvet Revolution in
Czechoslavakia, twenty-eight Gypsies have been murdered.
Fonseca cites several specific cases of terrorism against the Gypsies
during the 90’s. “In February 1995, in Oberwart, Austria, a town
seventy-five miles south of Vienna, four Gypsy men were murdered. A pipe
bomb had been concealed behind a sign that said, in Gothic tombstone
lettering, ‘Gypsies go back to India’; the bomb exploded in their faces
when they tried to take it down. The first response of the Austrian police
was to search the victims’ own settlement for weapons; ‘Gypsies killed by
own bomb,’ the papers reported.” Oberwart, Austria, is in Burgenland,
where the Gypsies have been settled for three centuries.
The resurging repression of the Gypsies is Europe’s continuing crime
against humanity. At the Nazi trials in Nuremberg, there was no one to
speak on behalf of the Gypsies. Now, the Gypsies have at least this
eloquent book exposing Europe’s recrudescing genocidal threats to them. – C. J. Singh
Ostensiblty the book is a series of personal anecdotes regarding the author’s relative immersion in Rom culture throughout her travels in eastern Europe. These stories are punctuated with valuable historical and cultural contexts that give the reader an enlightening perspective on an an almost deliberately unknowable culture.
With the tremendous variation amongst the Romani peoples throughout Europe, it’s impossible to write a book that generalizes the culture from personal experiences. This book, if looked at as a comprehensive discussion of the customs and beliefs of all Roma, would naturally be a failure. However Fonseca clearly never intended to create an anthopological text or catalog of Romani beliefs but rather provide an individual account of a few small groups from a proximity rarely breached by outsiders. In this sense, Bury Me Standing is a complete success.
Fonseca’s attention to detail, personal approach and vivid descriptions of this hidden world make this a rare snapshot of a vanishing world.
An absolutely engrossing and fascinating read. I’m amazed at how thorough and introspective Duff McDonald’s portrayal of Jaime Dimon was in this book. I sometimes wonder how the author was granted and given access to so many influential and powerful businessmen. The stories that span Jaime’s life, from his days at HBS to his ascension to the top of JP Morgan are compelling but at times almost too “perfect.” I know that Jaime is brilliant, competitive, driven, passionate, has all the traits that a successful CEO/leader possesses, but sometimes the portrayal of Jaime is “too shiny” almost flawless. I don’t think the author showed any real “dark side” of Jaime which would have led me to believe that Jaime is human. All in all, a terrific book, finished the book in less than 2 weeks and devoured each chapter.
Even though I haven’t finished this book – half of them, I can’t wait telling you that I indeed like this book
This book is very good in terms of displaying a vivid Jamie, from a fresh graduates from HBS with lots of attractive offers, to a CEO assistant of Sandy Weill, to a two man company, to the most visionary, stronghead, promising financial leaders.
The most important thing I read from this book is that the author tells us a 360 degree Jamie, where I can see the suffer and joyness all his road to the top.
This book is a very interesting read about how Jamie Dimon rose to the position of leadership he now holds at JPMorganChase. If more CEO’s in America possessed and exercised the integrity and leadership skills of Dimon, this country’s economy would be in much better shape than it now is. As this book points out in spots, Dimon isn’t perfect, but overall he is an excellent leader who attracts loyal talent wherever he has worked.
I just finished Duff McDonald’s “Last Man Standing – The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase.” This book should be required reading for every person in the financial services industry, anyone studying business in college, as well as entrepreneurs, M&A types, accountants, and investors. It’s just a fantastic, incredible story – woven together by a master literary artist.
This is a tremendous biography. Yet, it’s vastly more than that. It is a crucial contribution to the the burgeoning insights into the development of the financial services industry in the U.S. Moreover, it is a story about the development of character – human character – the character of a man (Jamie Dimon) whose life, intelligence, compassion and instincts continue to shape the landscape in America. In many ways, Dimon’s life represents something that is lacking today in U.S. culture — living role models for a younger generation to yearn to emulate.
The writing by Duff McDonald is balanced, provides the reader with a tremendous sense of Jamie Dimon as a human being, as well as financier/CEO. The writing has a pulse, provides a perspective into both the personal and corporate world – an existence that is often perplexing. The dimensions of struggle, insight, learning and persistence all resonate throughout this non-nonsense non-fiction account of one of America’s true leaders.
The history of the development of the U.S. financial services industry is also quite detailed and anything but boring.
After Alexander Hamilton founded the Bank of New York – purportedly the first commercial bank in the U.S. in 1794- he had the industry to himself until 1799. About this time, his political rival Aaron Burr started the Bank of Manhattan. A banker named John Thompson started Chase National Bank in 1877. He named it after Salmon P. Chase who’d been President Lincoln’s secretary of the treasury as well as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
J.P. Morgan & Company emerged in what has been referred to as the “gilded age” of American finance. Founded in 1871 by J. Pierpont Morgan and a Philadelphia banker by the name of Anthony Drexel. (P. 203).
The essence of the book is captured in the following paragraph from author Duff McDonald:
“After years of being considered a glorified number-cruncher who only knew how to cut costs, he was finally acknowledged as a leader who knew how to make a company grow. What’s more, he was recognized s both a creative thinker and a man with the ability to shape the culture not just of his company but also of his industry and even the country itself. It says something about Wall Street today that only a few people command both the respect of their peers and the genuine curiosity of the outside world.” P. 322
Of course the years as Sandy Weill’s protege are well documented and shared frankly, yet with uncanny dignity. However, there are some lessons you can identify in the book that should serve readers requirement for a perspective on the real Sandy Weill, as evidenced by the following:
“Weill had acquired the dreaded CEO disease, which made him unable to hear anything but what he wanted to hear.” p.115.
Sandy Weill, on the other hand, is proof that you should never underestimate the man who overestimates himself.” p.130
The Dimon family’s dedication to giving back to community is well documented in the book:
“The Dimons give generously from their family foundation as well as from their personal accounts. Jamie also gives gifts above and beyond annual bonuses to the people with whom he works closely, including his driver. And just like Sandy Weill, he has tried to spread stock ownership through every company he’s run, from top to bottom, driven by a desire to see his colleagues get rich along with him.” P.114
Dimon’s insights into deal making and mergers and acquisitions activity are numerous, useful and characterized in the following:
“On a call with analysts in May, he tried, once again, to make explicit his view of acquisition opportunities. “There are three things that have to make sense,” he said. “And they are not in order of importance. One is the business logic. There should be clear business logic to it. The second is the price. Sometimes there is a price at which you cannot make it pay for shareholders. And the third is the ability to execute. You have to be able to see clearly getting done what you need to get done, whether it is management or systems or marketing or culture or something like that. If those things make sense, you can then weigh and balance them. Meaning, if you have exceptional business logic and an easy ability to execute, you could pay a higher price. And conversely, if those things are a little more complex, you want a margin of error by getting a lower it price.” Pp.216-217
The tidbits that Warren Buffet shares about Dimon are priceless: Here’s a couple to chew on:
“Warren Buffett thinks Dimon separated himself from the pack by relying on his own judgment and not becoming slave to the software that tried to simplify all of banking into a mathematical equation. “Too many people overemphasize the power of these statistical models,” he says. “But not Jamie. The CEO of any of these firms has to be the chief risk officer.”
“You have to have somebody that’s got a real fear in them of what can happen in the markets. They have to know financial history. You can’t evaluate risk in sigmas.” – quote from Warren Buffett p.232
Duff McDonald refers to sayings of Dimon as DIMONOLOGY. These are precious sentences of wisdom, uncommon sense, and the voice of both character and experience. Allow me to share a few here I particularly enjoyed, to whet your whistle:
“a consistency to performance, rather than someone chasing the flavor of the month,” p. 206
“One of the toughest jobs of the CEO is to look at all the stupid stuff other people are doing and to not do them,” p.214
“Everyone was trying to grow in products we didn’t want to grow in,” he later told a reporter. “So we let them have it.” P.214
“There is one financial commandment that cannot be violated: Do not borrow short to invest long-particularly against `illiquid, long-term assets.” “You know what sinks companies?” he asked an audience in late 2008. “Financing illiquid assets short.” P. 230
“Well, sometimes you can’t grow. Sometimes you don’t want to grow. In certain businesses, growth means you either take on bad clients, excess risk, or too much leverage.” P.231
“I don’t want to be big and stupid. I want to be really good at what we do.” P.240
“The issue is not just whether someone has the intellectual capacity to manage it. Someone must also have the desire.” P.325
“Individual units may have volatile results, but the combination is more stable. P.324
“It is no surprise that a lack of corporate intrigue tends to go hand in hand with long-term success.” P. 303
“He actually trusts the people working for him, and trusts, too, that they can learn from their mistakes, as he has learned from his own.” P.304
“When talking of the most important things in his life, he once said, “My family, humanity, my Country, and the world. And way down here is J.P. Morgan.” P.309
“A lot of those mark-to-market losses will end up being real losses,” he’said. “They are real losses that are simply being recognized in the market before they’re being recognized in expected cash flows.” P.310
“What we aim for is continuous improvement. It’s not like we think we get to a perfect place.” P. 320
Problems don’t age well; denying or hiding them guarantees that they will get worse. Bureaucracy, silos, and politics are the bane of large corporations; they must be combated vigorously and continually.” P.160
No company has ever had much of a future by cutting costs. Success is measured by top and bottom-line growth.” P.169
Review our businesses and what we’re doing well organically. That kind of growth will get you a higher value for your shareholders. By the way M&A is risky and tough, so the discipline is different. You really need to think about the landscape, to ask yourself what’s changing.” Pp.173-174
“I think it’s important that you’re open-minded to other people’s ideas.” P.176
“Many of the previous decade’s mergers had been nothing more than “stacking doughnuts”- the holes in the business that had existed before were still there.” P.181
On large outsourcing contracts – “We want patriots, not mercenaries,” p. `93
“open architecture” — in which the firm’s brokers were allowed to offer any number of funds, not just those from JPMorgan Chase.” P.194
`If you admit your mistakes, Dimon’s theory went, you save yourself the hassle of having your critics point them out to you.” P. 196
“Every single risk you’re taking can be broken down to its smallest components and therefore be better understood. All it takes is time and effort.” P.197
As Duff concludes this volume, he shares the following:
“Jamie Dimon has emerged as a moral and managerial compass for both his industry and the country itself.” p. 328 —-
Frankly, after 328 pages of absolutely wonderful investigative journalism, the obvious discipline of a superb historical biographer, and being immersed in the rare literary talents of a master story-teller (I am referring here to author Duff McDonald) — I unequivocally agree!!!
To Jamie, Judy, family, colleagues and to Duff McDonald – It was a pleasure and a privilege to have the honor of reading about your lives. My sincere thanks. Your story shall endure with me.
To the reader – Buy This Book – One of the Best I’ve devoured in 2010 and likely to make my Top 10 for 2010. ENJOY!
“Standing With Israel” has some somewhat fascinating moments where it explores the long history between Judaism and Christianity and how both basically share the same root. But David Brog’s study eventually loses any real value when it turns into an ignorant, rabid right-wing pamphlet supporting imperialism in the Middle East and Israeli atrocities in the occupied territories.
Brog belongs to the same fanatical pro-Israel lobby headed by the likes of John Hagee, who enjoy ignoring modern history and instead dwelve in ancient history and twist it around for their own apocalyptic use. Like Hagee, Brog rabidly backs every single Israeli policy (except giving back some land to Palestinians of course) no matter how bloody or militant. Consider Brog’s passages on the 2000 Intifada, he complains about U.S. pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and paints it as poor innocent Israel being pressured by her U.S. masters, of course Brog fails to mention the brutal aspects of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the horrific conditions Palestinians endure in what can only be described as an apartheid state. Brog also praises immense military aid packages given to Israel by the U.S., again ignoring what all the hardware is used for, the brutal occupation of Palestinian territories. Of course it is justified in Brog’s view, God gave the Jews that land anyway, it’s the Palestinians who should leave to wherever they accept them.
“Standing With Israel” makes some valid points condemning Christian anti-semitism, that is to be acknowledged, but again, the main faults with Brog’s work are the same faults in Hagee’s dogmatic (more like politically-motivated) backing of current foreign policies. Brog also makes certain points about Iran, as every pro-Israel author does these days, giving us hard warnings about an impending nuclear doom. Of course Brog again, ignores that Israel is the only nuclear power in the region, or the fact that the hotbed of Islamic radicalism is Pakistan, which DOES have nukes. Brog also ignores basic data concerning U.S. backing for Israel. Like his colleagues, he paints the relationship as a Christian nation aiding God’s Chosen, which is a joke. U.S. aid to Israel was pathetic before the 1967 war, when Israel proved itself to be a viable client state in the Middle East.
Brog cites George Bush’s messianic (and scary) worldview, praising his “good vs. evil” crusade to spread “freedom,” Brog of course never complains about U.S. backing for tyrannical regimes in Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Essentially Brog backs more wars, particularly against Syria and Lebanon, to expand the fulfillment of Biblical scripture, or something.
“Standing With Israel” is just the same recycling of the kind of radical dogmatic, right-wing support of current Israeli policies that conservative Christians promote, there is nothing really here or of high historical value, secular Israeli scholarship is actually much more serious than this sort of book. Like the worst propaganda it just presents a very touching, glossy surface, but never dares explore the darker, violent realities underneath. It is almost frightening how Brog never questions Israeli policy EXCEPT when it comes to what he considers no nos like, again, giving up territories which were ocucpied in a military campaign. Again, for a true look at Israel just read the nation’s main paper, Haaretz, or seek more authentic forms of Israeli scholarship, this is just candy for very ignorant, unaware individuals.
The phenomenon of evangelical Christian support for Israel has garnered increasing media attention in recent years. Yet almost all of this coverage has been shallow and skeptical. Few have bothered to go beyond recycling the conventional wisdom.
David Brog went behind the headlines to find the truth about Christian Zionism. By spending time with Christian Zionists, attending their churches and events, and reading their books and publications, Brog discovered the real motives and goals of an increasingly powerful political movement.
In the process, Brog became convinced he was tapping into something far deeper than politics. Brog, a Jew, came to believe that he was witnessing the birth pangs of a Christian/Jewish reconciliation that has been over two millennia in the making.
In this important book, David Brog stands the conventional wisdom about Christians and Jews on its head. In so doing, he helps to further the very reconciliation he seeks to chronicle. This book is required reading for anyone who cares about the future of Christian/Jewish relations and the State of Israel.
I love the book. It is very optimistic. I am a Christian and I love the Jews. Jews are the ones that gave us Jesus, Freud, Einstein, many great physicians, and contribute significantly to the Mathematical, Physical and Medical world. Like Asians, they are pretty smart group of people.
For those interested in knowing the origins of Christian antisemitism, as well as the modern-day cure to this age-old disease, this book is an excellent tutor. As other reviewers have stated here, the discussion herein is quite calm and collected. It is filled with fact and history, and contains no hyperbole or exaggeration whatsoever.
It’s too bad that the supposed saint Obama evidently never read this book — not (apparently) recommended it to his “uncle” Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
For whereas Wright’s Christianity is entirely race-based, Afrocentric, and highly antisemitic, this volume explains that true Christianity went far astray in rejecting the teachings of the Apostle Paul, who declared “has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I am also an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.” (Romans 11:1-2)
Furthermore, Paul asked whether the Jewish people had “stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not!… Concerning the gospel [the Jews] are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:11, 28-29)
Alas, the book explains that about 100 years after Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, the church abandoned his “struggle to preserve a special status for the Jews in favor of a clear and clean replacement theology.” That is, while the church retained souls to plea for the inherent holiness of the Jewish people, by virtue of God’s recognition and gifts to them, Justin Martyr (who died at the hands of the Romans), claimed the mantle of Israel for the church itself, naming Christianity as a “replacement” for the Jewish people, or “all Israel.”
This idea was hardened further by Saint John Chrysostum of Antioch in 387, when he pronounced several anti-Jewish messages to his followers, declaring that in replacing the Jewish people as “Israel,” the former must needs be eliminated. Thus arose outright hatred of the Jewish people. Essentially, Chysostum preached base covetousness: in order to obtain the blessings given to Israel by God, Christianity must usurp their place. And to do that, Christianity must eliminate them.
Thus, according to Brog — who cites the erudite and learned Christian scholar Franklin Littell’s The Crucifixion of the Jews, among other works — Christianity and the message of Christ and His apostle Paul themselves became perverted.
Writes the Rev. Clarence Wagner, of Bridges for Peace, “The error of Replacement Theology is like a cancer in the Church that has not only caused it to violate God’s Word concerning the Jewish people and Israel, but it has made us into instruments of hate….”
One aspect of this book especially strikes me as truly awe-inspiring — the understated nature of the repentance herein, which drives home by its very subtlety, a sense of intense sincerity hard to overlook. It contains the kind of understanding and warmth that is dialectically opposed to the rantings of saint Obama’s pastor.
One cannot choose one’s parents and grandparents, whom in any case always deserve respect.
But one can choose one’s ministers. Among very many other things, this book sets straight precisely why Rev. Jeremiah Wright is so wrong about so many things — and should be followed by no one, least of all excused by a presidential candidate declaring his devotion as a Christian.
—Alyssa A. Lappen
I enjoyed this book because her people are real to me and I can follow them through her next books.
I feel like I’m part of the family.
Judi
I have an English degree and read a lot. There is nothing out there that compares to this book. Fannie Flagg is at her best. I’ve read it too many times to count. I want to pack up and move to her fictional town of Elmwood Springs. It is so well-written, and Flagg is so witty. It is the only book I ever recommend to my friends. Then you have to follow up with Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven.
With all the great reviews, I guess I was expecting more. Maybe it was the writing style, a little choppy. However, there were times that I burst out laughing.