Office Of The Amercias For The Cause Of Justice And Peace

OOA Book Reviews

If you have a book you would like to share with us please send your review to ooa@igc.org.

Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War

By Joe Bageant. Reviewed by Alice Powell

Web columnist Joe Bageant returns to his home town in Winchester, Virginia. In this account he gives the reader a vivid picture of the poverty and bleakness of the permanent underclass. We are given to understand, with sympathy, why guns and church are important in this community. Liberals and progressives need to understand this reality with compassion, if we are to attempt solving the dilemma as to why these people tend not to vote their interests.

Mr. Bageant elaborates the theme presented by Thomas Frank's "What's the matter with Kansas"? Frank raises the question of why the Democratic Party has abdicated the phrase "working class" and, in fact, has abdicated advocating for the working class. Bageant presents a stark picture of the deer hunting, church attending, union hating, liberal rejecting culture. Read it and see for yourself why the Atlanta Journal Constitution said," hilariously funny, very angry, and somewhat depressing…the one book I read in 2007 that I would like all of you to read".

Guerrillas of Peace On the Air: Pacifica Radio Commentaries and Field Reports from Justice and Peace Missions in Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico and Iraq.

by Blase Bonpane

I opened the manuscript of Blase Bonpane's record of Radio commentary and peace reports, intending to put it aside for later reading, but was immediately captivated and couldn't put it down. It is gripping and instructive, shining a bright light on painful and critical problems of the day and introducing us to wonderful people whose struggle and sometimes grim fate should be seared in our memory: Sister Dianna Ortiz and Lori Berenson, Rev. Lucius Walker and Father Roy Bourgeois, and many others, not the least the author, whose quiet modesty cannot conceal his remarkable and inspiring life and work, here partially revealed. Noam Chomsky

Buy a copy

The Peace March, La Marcha (website)

Read Blase Bonpane's account of La Marcha as written in his book, Guerrillas of Peace On the Air. This stirring account is of a most historical peace march throughout Central America in December 1985 during the height of the wars and massacres in that region.

East Timor:  Genocide in Paradise

By Matthew Jardine

I was in high school when the war started. I had no political ties, didn't belong to any party. My friends and I were forced to join the Indonesian army. None of us wanted to, but if we didn't, we would have been killed. I went on operations to kill other Timorese, ordinary people. I felt strange—none of us felt good. But after two or three years, it was easy. You get used to killing. I was forced to kill my best friend. I don't want to talk about it; I don't feel good when I think about it. They knew he was my friend so they forced me to shoot him. They do these things to test you. Noam Chomsky

Buy a copy

Love In a Time of Hate

By Nancy Hollander

Published in 1997, this groundbreaking work locates the intersection of psychoanalysis, Marxism, and twentieth century social upheaval in South America, and provides an all-too-rare study of the role of psychoanalysis in understanding and overcoming social trauma. Nancy Caro Hollander profiles ten Argentine, Chilean, and Uruguayan psychologists and psychoanalysts who experienced firsthand, and later strove to comprehend, the political and social oppression that occurred under the military dictatorships in their countries during the 1970s and 1980s. In clear, vivid prose, she recounts how psychoanalysts employed what she calls "liberation psychology" to understand the brutal trauma suffered by the populace under fiercely repressive regimes and then to help themselves and others to confront and overcome a culture of intimidation, coercion, torture, and, frequently, murder. About the Author Nancy Caro Hollander is a professor of Latin American history and women's studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills. She is a clinical affiliate of the Psychoanalytic Center of California. Hollander has also been a documentary filmaker and radio producer.

Buy a copy.

OOA Book Recommendations

The following lists have been compiled from recommendations made to OOA. The readers submitting these lists have found these materials to be educational and helpful in their understanding of and work for peace. We hope you will find the same results and perhaps send us some of your recommendations.

Israel and Palestine:

• Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 by Tanya Reinhart
• The Road Map to nowhere: Israel/Palestine since 2003 by Tanya Reinhart
• How to Overcome Zionism by Joel Kovel
• The Truth about Camp David :The Untold Story About the Collapse of the Middle East Peace Process by Clayton E Swisher (former marine reservist and federal criminal investigator.)
• Palestine Peace not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter
• Lords of the Land: The War Over israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007 by Ideth Zertal Eldar ( have not read this one, but is highly recommended)
• The Israeli Lobby by John J. Mearscheimer and Stephen M. Walt

Chavez

• Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution by Richard Gott
• The Chavez Code by Eva Golinger

U.S. Politics and History

• The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
• Broken Government by John W. Dean
• Waging Peace by Scott Ritter
• The Genius of Impeachment by John Nichols
• The Secret History of the American Empire by John Perkins
• Confessions of An Economic Hitman by John Perkins
• Nemisis by Chalmers Johnson
• Wealth and Democracy by Kevin Phillips
• American Theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips
• Freedom Next Time " Resisting the Empire by John Pilger
• The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome by Michael Parenti
• The Rise and Rise of Richard B. Cheney:Unlocking the Mysteries of the Most Powerful Vice President in American History by John Nichols
• An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire by Arundhati Roy

Religion and Philosophy

• The God Illusion by Richard Dawkins
• The End of Faith by Sam Harris
• Breaking the Spell by Daniel C.Dennett
• The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth E.O. Wilson
• Beyond Belief: The Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels
• Sense & Goodness Without God A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism by Richard Carrier
• God is Not Great-How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchins

Children and Education

• "Doing School" How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students by Denise Clark Pope
• The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins
• Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child by Alissa Quart
• Humanism for Parents: Parenting without Religion by Sean P. Curley

Fiction

• Bel Canto by Ann Patchet
• Beauty and Truth by Ann Patchet
• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• Saturday by Ian McEwan
  

From OOA Staff

• Father Greg & The Homeboys by Celeste Fremon
• Mr. Galloway Goes to Washington by George Galloway
• September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows by David Potori
• What Would Jefferson Do? by Thom Hartmann
• Made Love, Got War? by Norman Solomon
  

Shae Popovich's Recommendations

Political Films

• Wal-mart the Movie
• Road to Guantanamo
• Iraq in Fragments
• The Fog of War
• Osama
• The Peace
• Control Room
  

Fiction Films

• Paradise Now
• Sunrise
• Water
• Into the Wild
• In the Valley of Elah
• Wings of Desire
• Away from Her
• Motorcycle Diaries
• Nowhere in Africa
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