Books Briefly
Books Briefly Reformation or repression? The Emerging Order: God in the Age of Scarcity, by Jeremy Rifkin and Ted Howard (Putnam. 302 pp. $10). In a wide-ranging survey, Rifkin and Howard explore...
...In a wide-ranging survey, Rifkin and Howard explore the shape of things to come("the emerging order") in U.S...
...economics, conservation, and religion...
...After an extensive review of religious history and the surge in evangelical and charismatic movements, Rifkin and Howard conclude that possibly a great religious awakening ("a second Protestant reformation") will occur in the years ahead...
...They foresee a radical transformation in national goals and spiritual values as we move from an age of growth to an age of limits...
...Only yesterday The Americans, by Alistair Cooke (Alfred A. Knopf...
...An unsettling book...
...Today, America is experiencing the stirrings of a new spiritual revival," they note, "just at the time the economy is beginning to shift from the expansionary ethos of industrial development to the contracting ethos of the steady state...
...In this collection of fifty talks broadcast over BBC during the last decade, Cooke serves forth his observations and reflections on American life and politics...
...However, they caution, as domestic and global problems increase in the 1980s, religious revival could "provide a recruiting ground for a repressive movement manifesting all the earmarks of an emerging fascism...
...10.95...
...He has his quirks (he frowns on jogging, digital watches, soft drinks, and careless grammar...
...An entertaining review of the last ten years by an intelligent and witty correspondent...
...Transplanted here from England since 1932, Cooke is both a vivid reporter and thoughtful commentator...
...He ranges over Watergate, the Presidency, Vietnam and the secret bombing of Cambodia ("an unconstitutional exercise in deceit"), the military uses of space ("the technology of war is acquiring a momentum independent of national policy or the men who make it"), the aftermath of Haight-Ashbury, sports in general and golf in particular, and the gifts of Duke Ellington, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Bing Crosby...
...272 pp...
Vol. 44 • January 1980 • No. 1
