I have to say: the title and cover of this book is what caught me. It was listed as a bestseller on Amazon.com under the “Religion and Spirituality” section; so I clicked on a few reviews, and ended up buying and reading it over the past week.
Son of Hamas is the autobiography of Mosab Hassan Yousef, eldest son of one of the founders of the Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas. Mosab grew up in the organization–steeped in Islam–through all of his childhood years, learning to hate and want to kill Israelis. One day, while on his way to school, he was captured by one of the Israeli intelligence services, and through many events, became a trusted informant and spy against Hamas, while still acting a terrorist. In the midst of everything, Mosab is given a Bible in the Arabic tongue, and invited to a Christian Bible study in Jerusalem. Over time, Mosab accepts Jesus Christ as God and Saviour: rejecting the teachings of Islam, and embracing the love of God. Mosab, still, continued to be one of the Israeli government’s most valued sources, and through him, dozens of terrorist plots were foiled, perhaps saving multitudes of lives on both sides of the conflict.
As a whole, the plot of Son of Hamas moves extremely fast, almost too fast in my opinion. The narrative could have been many pages longer. Nonetheless, the books leaves the reader feeling like he is actually a part of this gripping thriller, almost to the point where it seams like fiction: though most of the story has happened even in my recent memory. Political and military secrets are revealed, surprisingly, even though the conflict is still very much alive today. As an Islamic, Arab, Palestinian, Mr. Yousef captures the feeling of his people extremely well–making the reader better understand their culture and traditions, and how they affect the world today. He also shows true compassion for his people, and the true answer to the conflict in the Middle-East: Jesus Christ.
…a review of Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
Growing up a Midwesterner, in and around medium-sized cities (Saginaw and Lansing, Michigan), I can always remember having black students as classmates and friends. I recollect a time, while being lectured in second grade history class, that my teacher said most black people in America are somehow descendants of slaves. This really perked my interest, and with my uncouth and inquisitive nature at the time, I raised my hand and asked, referring to a black classmate, “Does that mean that ______’s ancestors were slaves?” Looking back, I remember looking at that student and seeing a somewhat embarrassed expression on their face. This, in turn, made me even more embarrassed for asking the question. This was my friend! I was just beginning to learn of the story of blacks in America: their history, failures, and successes.
My mother and father trained me well, thankfully. I never heard a slight or a joke about any other race. We were taught that there was no difference in the color of one’s skin. After all, God created all humans in His image. Any other race was no less in God’s image.
In high school and college, I worked in ministries which took me into neighborhoods that were predominately African-American. From the south-side of Lansing to nearly all of Gary, Indiana, black families were a part of my prayer life and ministry to God. I’m not sure what exactly sparked my mind to be interested in the demographics and history of cities like Gary and Chicago, but I began to research here and there just why many cities had gone from dazzling to dilapidated in the course of just a generation. When I heard of Isabel Wilkerson’s new work, The Warmth of Other Suns, I knew that I would enjoy delving into it, but hesitated at first because of one reason: usually books on African-American history are slanted to a liberal world-view. Even a just a balanced account, I thought, would suffice. Eventually, I surrendered my preconceptions, and bought it for my Kindle.
The Warmth of Other Suns is a detailed historical narrative of the immense migrations of blacks from the rural and agricultural south to the urban and industrial north from 1915-1975. Isabel Wilkerson focuses on three individuals, from three different states, and from three different waves of the migration. Ida Mae Gladney and her sharecropping husband fled Mississippi to settle in Chicago in the 1930’s. George Starling and his wife fled threats of lynchings in central Florida for New York City in the 1940’s. And Robert Foster left the underwhelming prospects of being a colored doctor in a highly segregated Louisiana town to the promising prospects of Los Angeles. Throughout the narrative, the larger history of the Great Migration is filled in, providing a depth that does not leave the reader in the dark concerning the whole of that time period.
The author tells each individual’s story vividly, without bogging the narrative down with useless detail. The environment of the Jim Crow Laws is vividly portrayed. The culture of southern blacks is captured perfectly: from their food to their southern-black vernacular –though at first the dialog takes some getting used to, due to frequent unfamiliar contractions and expressions! The reader also feels a real acquaintance to each protagonist, wanting them to succeed, while also being able to see flaws and mistakes each made.
For the most part, the author does a good job of generalizing unwelcome details, but in an instance or two, she describes things a little too much for the Christian mind, including some profanity. As a whole however, the book is very modest. As for the overall political slant of the book, I would say that it is legitimately balanced: this coming from a very conservative perspective. The author is truly artful in her journalism–presenting all the points of view, and allowing the reader to make his or her own judgments. I can say, from my point of view, that The Warmth of Other Suns is balanced and unbiased.
For any lover of twentieth century history, The Warmth of Other Suns is a treasure. For me, it gave new insight into the the black culture, the spite expressed on both sides, and the satisfaction that the migrants gained from being able to provide a good upbringing for their children, whether they accepted it or not.
And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
I really enjoy this new Kindle that I was given for my birthday by my parents! In fact, I like it so much that I have been reading more as of lately, therefore not much blogging–no apologies, though!
The first book I downloaded (in the van on the way back from Empowered Youth) had just come out the previous day, I believe. It was Decision Points by former President George W. Bush. I appreciated the format and writing style of the book, but was not all that impressed with it. If I were to give it an “Amazon” style star rating, it would probably be a “4.” However, as I was finishing up Decision Points, I heard of a new book that had just been published and released a few days before, and was already on many “Best Books of 2010” lists, and quickly became a bestseller.
Now, I usually don’t just fall for a book just because it is a bestseller. In fact, many bestsellers are worthless in my eyes. I figure what literary critics often like, I will not. Yet, the premise of this book attracted me. It is was titled Unbroken: a World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemptionby Laura Hillenbrand. I read the brief synopsis of it, and figured I would give it a whirl. “Why not,” I thought. “With a Kindle, if it is worthless, I didn’t fork over much for it anyway.”
I delved into the true story quickly (probably too quickly) last Monday, the sixth of December. The story is of an Italian American named Louis Zamperini. I had never heard of him before purchasing the book. He was born into a lower middle-class family of immigrants in 1917, near New York City. When Louis was a baby, the Zamperini family moved to southern California, near Los Angeles, and as he grew, he became the town rascal. He would steal anything he could, take on any other boy his age, and get even with anyone who stood in his way. Everyone knew he would be in the juvenile hall before he was even grown. All of the police in Torrence, California knew exactly who “Louie” Zamperini was. His older brother Pete, though, invested everything to turn his little brother around. Louie’s brother and parents decided to make him into an athlete: specifically a runner.
At first, Louie hated anything to do with athletics and running; but soon, he gave in and began to love running. He would train constantly, and soon became the fastest high school mile-runner in the state, and within a year, the country. In just four years since beginning running, he was an Olympian at the 1936 games in Berlin (where the Nazis had recently come to power, and Hitler the Chancellor). Louie was still a rascal though: he decided he was going to steal the Nazi flag from Hitler’s home. He was caught stealing the flag, but the guards never knew that he still had the flag stuffed in his clothes.
When the United States entered World War II, Louie reluctantly joined the Air Force–reluctant because he was disappointed he couldn’t run in the next Olympics in Tokyo, which was obviously cancelled. Over a great series of events, his plane went down in the Pacific Ocean, where he survived for well over a month on a six foot long life raft. Nearly starving to death, he and the other survivor, pilot Russel Phillips miraculously spotted land. Unfortunately for them, though, they were picked up by an enemy Japanese ship before they could reach the island.
From that point on, Louie and Russel’s lives would be absolute misery. They were constantly starved, experimented on, and beat to a pulp. One guard, knowing Louie as a famous runner, singled him out, and found nearly every way to beat him nearly daily. Louie, with ever bit of pressure around him to succumb to the beatings, starvation, and abuse by losing his sense of patriotism and pride, never once broke down in front of his captors. He was convinced that if he did, he had betrayed himself and his country. As the war drew on, the abuses grew even worse, wearing on Louie physically and emotionally. With death all around him, it all became hopeless when the rumor spread that the Japanese, losing the war badly, would kill all prisoners of war on a certain date. Just days before that date, two atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese homeland, ending the war, and giving freedom to the surviving POWs. Louie came out “unbroken.”
Louie arriving back home after years in a POW camp
He was a national hero. But in his mind, the war had only just begun. Every single night, his captors appeared in his dreams, constantly beating him. He began to drink heavily, knowing it as the only way to dull the emotion and stress. He began to hate his captors so much that he knew the only way to rid himself of them in his mind was to go back to Japan and seek revenge. His new wife could no longer handle the drinking, and within a few years of marriage, she sought a divorce.
Then the most miraculous thing happened–Louie’s wife was invited to see an evangelist preach at a city-wide crusade. When she came back she said she had been born again, and would no longer seek a divorce. Louie thought that was great, but for sure did not like the religious part of it. All of the sudden, his wife had “religious” friends around her constantly, and would always try to persuade him to go to an evangelistic service. Finally he agreed. He heard the preacher, Billy Graham, talk of sin, hell, and forgiveness, and Louie wanted to part of it. He left even more mad at God. He drank himself to sleep that night, along with that came yet another nightmare of him getting beat up. The next night, his wife bugged him again to attend the service. He flat out refused. Just to see his wife happy, though, he said he might just go–just as long as she promised he could leave as soon as the preacher told everyone “to bow their heads, close their eyes, and with no one looking around.”
Louie was convicted the entire message of his sin, boiling inside with so much hatred of everything. When the time of the invitation came, he got up to leave. As he stepped into the aisle near the back row where he and his wife were sitting, he came to the greatest realization in his life: everything he had suffered and survived through was to wake him up to his need for a Savior. He broke down, went to the altar, and accepted Christ as his redeemer. That very evening, he went home and emptied his great collection of liquor bottles and cigarette packs: he was done with his old life. He was a Christian now. From then on, after five and a half years of constant nightmares and depression, he never once had a nightmare or bout of depression again. Also, instead of the most severe hatred of his captors, he felt nothing but love for their souls. He soon returned to Japan to meet as many of the prison guards as he could. Many, he personally led to the Lord. The story could not have ended any better.
Though not even written as a Christian book; as a Christian, I can see the truth in it all. His whole life, Louie could be broken by no one: not even the most violent men in the world. Yet, when he came home, he nearly broke himself by alcohol and depression. Then Christ broke him of his pride and hate, making him whole. From then on, Louie Zamperini was truly Unbroken.
…I imagine that you all can tell just how much I enjoyed reading Unbroken. I think I finished all 500 pages in a week. For those of you that think this is probably just a typical war story, it is everything but that. It is exactly as the subtitle states: …a story of survival, resilience, and redemption.
Son of Hamas is the autobiography of Mosab Hassan Yousef, eldest son of one of the founders of the Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas. Mosab grew up in the organization–steeped in Islam–through all of his childhood years, learning to hate and want to kill Israelis. One day, while on his way to school, he was captured by one of the Israeli intelligence services, and through many events, became a trusted informant and spy against Hamas, while still acting a terrorist. In the midst of everything, Mosab is given a Bible in the Arabic tongue, and invited to a Christian Bible study in Jerusalem. Over time, Mosab accepts Jesus Christ as God and Saviour: rejecting the teachings of Islam, and embracing the love of God. Mosab, still, continued to be one of the Israeli government’s most valued sources, and through him, dozens of terrorist plots were foiled, perhaps saving multitudes of lives on both sides of the conflict.
The Warmth of Other Suns is a detailed historical narrative of the immense migrations of blacks from the rural and agricultural south to the urban and industrial north from 1915-1975. Isabel Wilkerson focuses on three individuals, from three different states, and from three different waves of the migration. Ida Mae Gladney and her sharecropping husband fled Mississippi to settle in Chicago in the 1930’s. George Starling and his wife fled threats of lynchings in central Florida for New York City in the 1940’s. And Robert Foster left the underwhelming prospects of being a colored doctor in a highly segregated Louisiana town to the promising prospects of Los Angeles. Throughout the narrative, the larger history of the Great Migration is filled in, providing a depth that does not leave the reader in the dark concerning the whole of that time period.
