NEW YORK–It was in the spring of 1966 that Time magazine shocked a lot of readers with a black cover with the white question: "Is God Dead?" The article, much debated, defined a new and more secular world. Wrong! It turned out he was only resting. And not for long. In the 1970s came "La Revanche de Dieu"–"The Revenge of God"–the title of a book by a French political scientist, Gilles Kepel. Kepel, whose work was published in 1991 and translated into English three years later, began by chronicling the events of the 1970s, a decade many of us remember……
Tag: civil unrest
There Are No Easy Choices in Libya
LOS ANGELES — Adam Zyglis, the editorial cartoonist of The Buffalo News, did a portrait of President Obama sitting on an oil drum in the classic chin-on-hand pose of Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker." Behind him, war raged in the Middle East and "Freedom" was under a tank and rubble. Zyglis' caption was "The Overthinker." Well, although Obama may be a touch too thoughtful to be a president in the decisive mold of a Harry Truman, he does have a lot to think about. I count at least 11 options in Libya, all of them risky…….
Schell in New Yorker – Egypt
Senior Fellow Orville Schell's book Mandate of Heaven was cited in an article in The New Yorker for the strong parallels present in the China uprising in Tienanmen Square in 1989 and the recent civil riots taking place in Egypt. "It was bracing to be reminded in vivid, emotional detail of just how murderous the People's Liberation Army was when ordered to clear the protest," says author of the article Steve Coll. "The students and the urban workers who had persuaded themselves that they were near victory were also stunned by the Army's indiscriminate, decisive violence. They seemed to expect……