"Feiler’s combination of journalism, commentary and self-discoverytells the reader volumes about humankind.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution onAbraham
BruceFeiler, the bestselling author of Walking theBible and Abraham,examines the biblical and historical underpinnings of the Muslim world'spresent-day uprisings. As conflicts rock the Middle East, Feilerreturns to the region to explore how the sectarian and political conflicts in Libya,Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Israel, and Palestine represent a collision betweenmodern-day political tensions, centuries of deeply ingrained religioustraditions, and deeply entrenched cultural divides. Joining the ranks of ThomasFriedman and Fareed Zakaria,Feiler offers a book of powerful, transformativeinsight, uniquely illuminating a region in turmoil whose problems have longbeen clouded in confusion.
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Timely and provocative, Generation Freedom looks at the historic youth uprisings sweeping the Middle East and what they mean for the future of peace, coexistence, and relations with the West.
At a time when the world is asking how the Arab Spring and the death of Osama bin Laden will reshape our times, Bruce Feiler, bestselling author of Walking the Bible and Abraham, offers a vivid behind-the-scenes portrait of history in the making. He marches with the daring young organizers in Liberation Square, confronts the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, and witnesses the dramatic rebuilding of a church at exactly the moment sectarian violence threatens the peaceful movement. Drawing on fifteen years of travels across the region, from Egypt to Israel, Iraq to Iran, Feiler brings his unprecedented experience to the most pressing questions: how the rise of freedom will affect terrorism; Middle East peace; and relations among Jews, Christians, and Muslims worldwide. Eloquent and thoughtful, Generation Freedom offers a hopeful vision of how this unrivaled upheaval will transform the world.
About the Author
Bruce Feiler writes a column on contemporary family life for the New York Timesand is the author of five consecutive New YorkTimes bestsellers, including Walking the Bibleand The Council of Dads. The host of severalPBS series, he is a frequent contributor to ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, and othermedia. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife,Linda Rottenberg, and their twin daughters.
Product Details
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Original edition (June 28, 2011)
BRUCE FEILER is one of America's most popular voices on family, faith, and survival. He writes the "This Life" column about contemporary families for the Sunday New York Times and is the author of five consecutive New York Times bestsellers, including WALKING THE BIBLE and THE COUNCIL OF DADS. He is the writer/presenter of the PBS series "Walking the Bible" and the forthcoming "Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler." His latest book, THE SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILIES, is a bold playbook for families today. It collects best practices for modern-day parents from some of the country's most creative minds, including tops designers in Silicon Valley, elite peace negotiators, the creators of Modern Family and the Green Berets.
His most recent bestseller, THE COUNCIL OF DADS, is the international sensation that describes how faced with one of life's greatest challenges, he asked six friends to form a support group for his young daughters. The book was profiled in PEOPLE Magazine, USA Today, Time, and the Washington Post, and was the subject of a one-hour documentary on CNN hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Bruce was named "Father of the Year" by the National Fatherhood Initiative.
Since 2001, Bruce has been one of the country's preeminent thinkers, writers, and speakers about the role of religion in contemporary life. WALKING THE BIBLE describes his perilous, 10,000-mile journey retracing the Five Books of Moses through the desert. The book was hailed as an "instant classic" by the Washington Post and "thoughtful, informed, and perceptive" by The New York Times. It spent more than a year and a half on the New York Times bestseller list, has been translated into fifteen languages, and is the subject of a children's book, a photography book, and a miniseries on PBS.
ABRAHAM recounts his personal search for the shared ancestor of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. "Exquisitely written," wrote the Boston Globe, "100 percent engaging." The book was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine, debuted in the top 5 of the New York Times bestseller list, and inspired thousands of grassroots interfaith discussions around the world.
WHERE GOD WAS BORN describes his year-long trek visiting biblical sites through the front lines of Israel, Iraq, and Iran. "Bruce Feiler is a real-life Indiana Jones," wrote the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. AMERICA'S PROPHET is the groundbreaking story of the influence of Moses on American history. Both were Top 10 bestsellers.
Bruce Feiler has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Gourmet, where he won three James Beard Awards. He is also a frequent contributor to NPR, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and Fox News. A former circus clown, he has been the subject of Jay Leno joke and a JEOPARDY! question, and his face appears on a postage stamp in the Grenadines.
A native of Savannah, Georgia, Bruce lives in Brooklyn with wife, Linda Rottenberg, and their identical twin daughters.
I enjoy all Bruce Feiler books and finished this one last night - it is only 151 pages and details his thoughts on the Middle East revolutions during a recent visit to the region. It is best read slowly and thoughtfully.
I highlighted a few sentences - here is one that stands out: "One in seven human beings today is a Muslim under thirty. No matter what we may think of their religion, their heritage, or their culture, we must find a way to live alongside this next generation in the global economy of tomorrow."
There are five chapters pertaining to how freedom is being viewed across the world at this moment in history. Chapter one is "Freedom Comes Home". Chapter two is "The Birthplace of Freedom". Chapter three is "The Voice of Freedom." Chapter four is "Freedom to Believe". and the final chapter is "Generation Freedom".
The author discusses interviews with young activists, how facebook and technology is changing the modern world, and how religion and freedom must co-exist. I appreciate the fact that Bruce Feiler actually walks around the troubled countries, talks with leaders, and has no agenda other than to acquaint us with a worldview that includes Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faith, and the need for co-operation and understanding. Feiler has spent 15 years traveling from Egypt to Israel, Iraq to Iran, writing about the Bible lands and now trying to find answers as to how the rise of freedom will affect the terrorists and world peace.
Yet another classic piece from Bruce Feiler. If you love his other books you will like this one. Mr. Feiler merges his previous work on the bible and culture with the events from the newspaper. This is a very timely book about this Arab spring. His analysis is incredibly enriching.
Mr. Feiler offers something you won't see any other place. He explains events through various interviews of misc. people in the Arab world. Mr Feiler proves that recent events are not new but as grounded in culture and history as anything else in the region. He interjects bible and cultural references into the story of the Arab spring in Egypt.
I like his appraisal of the situation. He explains things this way. The people in the region are very grounded in their culture and religion. For example Mohammed used green during his conquest campaigns in the 600s as a theme or identification thing. Thus the democracy movement in Iran was called the green movement. There is a history of Islam embracing freedom of thought and of over throwing oppressors. Recent developments in demographics really provide the magic key of understanding to the situation. One third of the people in the Middle East are between the ages of 15 to 29. The population growth rate is at 2%. That is 60% higher than the global average. Mr Feiler explains that population bulges like that lead to trouble. He cites one study by the Population Action International found that between 1970 and 2007 86% of all outbreaks of conflict occurred in countries where 60% were younger than 30.
These new people are faced with few opportunities in their home countries. One report said that unemployment for youth was at 26%. Countries need a growth rate of 7-8% to sustain the population growth. Current growth in the region is only 3.6%. That has lead to horrible society impacts. One of these impacts was that people don't see a chance to get married. Fifty percent of Arab men between 25 to 29 are unmarried compared with 31% in Latin America and 23% in Asia.
Mr. Feiler points out that all of this tension is coming out. It will come out in many different ways. We are seeing it on the news. It is slowly starting to change the religions in the area. Who knows how it will come out in the future? Also, Iran leads the regions with the highest percent of youth in the region between the ages of 15 to 29.
I wanted to know more about what was going on with the revolutions in the Arab world, and I'd been considering reading Feiler's Walking the Bible for ages, so when I saw that he had written a short book about the uprisings--one that happened to be available for a discount at a closing bookstore--I decided to pick it up. The back covers says that it "looks at the historic youth uprisings sweeping the Middle East and what they mean for the future of peace, coexistence, and relations with the West", which was exactly what I wanted to find out about.
And the book does contain some interesting anecdotes about the revolutions, with a particular focus on Egypt, but on the whole I feel like I didn't learn very much. I maybe shouldn't have had high expectations for such a short book anyway (it's only 142 pages long), but the bigger problem is the approach that Feiler takes to the whole issue, an approach that isn't hinted at at all on the back cover. Basically, he believes that the Bible is the key to understanding the whole situation. There are a lot of comparisons to Moses and the Exodus. The following paragraph basically sums up Feiler's ideas:
"At first glance, it might seem like a stretch to say that the Egyptian Revolution--and the entire swath of uprisings that rattled the Middle East and North Africa beginning in 2010--had their roots in religion. After all, most of the high-profile organizers were young, not overtly spiritual, and their language appeared to be more secular than faith-based. But look beneath the surface, and it's easy to draw a straight line between the passionate cries for freedom across the Middle East and the earliest calls for freedom in the Ancient Near East. In fact, you can't understand the current yearnings without understanding their earliest written expression, and that was in the scriptures of the Abrahamic faiths. Long before the Enlightenment, the Reformation, or even classical Rome and Greece, freedom had its earliest and most influential expression in the Hebrew Bible."
Unfortunately, Feiler didn't remotely convince me of the validity of this view. He talked a lot about the Bible (and a bit about the Qur'an), and I can see that, yes, there were some similar issues at play then and now, but I saw no reason to think that the connections were causal. I didn't feel that his biblical discussions added anything to my understanding of the modern situation in the Middle East, which is what I was actually trying to find out about.
And I should note that in general, I have absolutely nothing against biblical studies or discussions of the ancient world. I'm pursuing a PhD in ancient history; I spend a large percentage of my time thinking about the ancient Near East. Feiler just didn't manage to persuade me of its relevance for the issue at hand. I'll have to seek out another book in order to understand what's going on in the world today.
To be fair, I should mention that Feiler doesn't entirely leave out a discussion of the modern issues. But in a book of this length, once the irrelevant parts are excluded, I don't think there was much more content than you'd find in a couple of magazine articles. I certainly didn't come away from it feeling that I had gained any great new insight into the matter.
