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Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (1st Ed) by Gray, John
by Gray, John | HC | Good
Condition:
“Dust jacket in good condition. First edition, first printing. Shelf and handling wear to cover and ”... Read moreabout condition
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Located in: Aurora, Illinois, United States
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Estimated between Tue, 11 Jun and Fri, 14 Jun to 43230
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eBay item number:374046681997
Item specifics
- Condition
- Good
- Seller Notes
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Edition
- First Edition
- Weight
- 0 lbs
- Product Group
- Book
- IsTextBook
- No
- ISBN
- 9780385662659
- Book Title
- Black Mass : Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia
- Publisher
- Doubleday Canada
- Item Length
- 8.5 in
- Publication Year
- 2007
- Format
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- Item Height
- 0.9 in
- Genre
- Religion, History, Political Science
- Topic
- Revolutionary, World / General, General, International Relations / General, Political Ideologies / Conservatism & Liberalism, Religion, Politics & State, Utopias
- Item Weight
- 12.8 Oz
- Item Width
- 5.8 in
- Number of Pages
- 256 Pages
About this product
Product Information
Fascinating, enlightening, and epic in scope, Black Mass looks at the historic and modern faces of Utopian ideology: Society's Holy Grail, but at what price? During the last century global politics was shaped by Utopian projects. Pursuing a dream of a world without evil, powerful states waged war and practised terror on an unprecedented scale. From Germany to Russia to China to Afghanistan, entire societies were destroyed. Utopian ideologies rejected traditional faiths and claimed to be based in science. They were actually secular versions of the myth of Apocalypse-the belief in a world-changing event that brings history, with all its conflicts, to an end. The war in Iraq was the last of these attempts at creating a secular Utopia, promising a new era of democracy and producing blood-soaked anarchy and an emerging theocracy instead. John Gray's powerful and frightening new book argues that the death of Utopia does not mean peace. Instead it portends the resurgence of ancient myths, now in openly fundamentalist forms. Obscurely mixed with geo-political struggles for the control of natural resources, apocalyptic religion has returned as a major force in global conflict.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Doubleday Canada
ISBN-10
0385662653
ISBN-13
9780385662659
eBay Product ID (ePID)
124193067
Product Key Features
Book Title
Black Mass : Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia
Number of Pages
256 Pages
Language
English
Publication Year
2007
Topic
Revolutionary, World / General, General, International Relations / General, Political Ideologies / Conservatism & Liberalism, Religion, Politics & State, Utopias
Genre
Religion, History, Political Science
Format
Hardcover
Dimensions
Item Height
0.9 in
Item Weight
12.8 Oz
Item Length
8.5 in
Item Width
5.8 in
Additional Product Features
Dewey Edition
22
Reviews
AGLOBE & MAILBEST BOOK OF 2007 "Gray's books have the delighting, frightening, distracting and focusing qualities of a mist-to-dusk drive on the Pacific Coast Highway… These are works of intellectual cartography, clarifying boundaries among disciplines, with one primary goal: naming the ways that we call secularism unknowingly and stubbornly promotes a crudely religious way of looking at the world… [W]hen Gray considers the missionary project of this war [Iraq], he describes insiders' decisions with deep understanding." -Los Angeles Times(Online) "[Gray] is a master of intellectual history. He has a sharp eye and a vivid writing style. And best of all, he dissects the pieties of others without regard for party, ideology, faith or faction. In all his books, there's something to offend everyone - along with at least a few crystalline insights, a marvellous aphorism or two, and several bucketloads of overwrought pessimism. Gray's latest,Black Mass, is no exception." -Ottawa Citizen "Gray writes controlled, clean and unfussy prose. . . . [Black Mass] is not a cheering work . . . and Gray's conclusions, though never exaggerated or overstated, are bleak in the extreme. Yet the right expression of even the bleakest truths is always invigorating, and any half-sensible reader will come away from the book soberer and even, perhaps, wiser." -Guardian "Read John Gray, and remember to laugh." -The Times(Online) "Incendiary. . . . Compelling. . . . Grayfinder of worms, uncoverer of bitter ironiesfeels at home in this epistemological hall of mirrors." -Guardian "Vintage Gray.Black Massis a sparkling synthesis of religious history and contemporary political analysis. . . . A passionate and powerful polemic." -The Spectator(UK) "An often rollicking, sometimes bone-crunching history of medieval barbarism, millennial cults, the rise of totalitarianism and the nadir of fascism, ending with a precise account of the lies and self-deceiving hopes that hurried on the invasion of Iraq." -New Statesman "One of John Gray's supreme qualities as a thinker is that he is bereft of illusions. Stripping away the meaningless verbiage which swaddles so much analysis, Gray discerns an underlying structure of thought (or lack of thought) in the political landscape. . . .Black Massshows the intellectual linkage between today's religious rhetoric and movements as diverse as the Bolsheviks, the Jacobins and the Nazis. His deep insight is that the underlying structure of modern politics derives from Christianity, and that the return of overt religious language to politics is merely the renewal of a latent characteristic. . . . Gray is unusual among contemporary Anglo-American philosophers in recognizing the primary role of the passions in forming ideas. He is a compelling writer, dismembering his targets with surgical irony." -The Independent(UK) "Black Mass...is a limpidly argued and finely written synthesis of Gray's thinking over the decade or so since False Dawn, his highly regarded and influential study of globalisation. It is not a cheering work, to say the least, and Gray's conclusions, though never exaggerated or overstated, are bleak...Yet the right expression of even the bleakest truths is always invigorating, and any half-sensible reader will come away from the book soberer and even, perhaps, wiser." -John Banville,The Guardian "Gray is right to scoff at the misplaced faith in progress propounded
Target Audience
Trade
Dewey Decimal
321/.07
Copyright Date
2007
Item description from the seller
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eBay item number:374046681997
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| Postage and handling | To | Service | Delivery*See Delivery notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free postage | United States | Economy Shipping | Estimated between Tue, 11 Jun and Fri, 14 Jun to 43230 |
| US $15.99 (approx S$ 21.54) | United States | Expedited Shipping | Estimated between Mon, 10 Jun and Wed, 12 Jun to 43230 |
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Sales Tax for an item #374046681997
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| Missouri (MO) | 8.238% |
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