|
|
(Larger Image)
|
In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas That Changed the World
by Paul Kriwaczek
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Knopf (2003-02-11)
ISBN: 0375415289
EAN: 9780375415289
Dewy Decimal #: 295
Hardcover: 272 pages
Edition: 1 Amer ed
Release Date: 2003-02-11
SKU: 08070258
Condition: Very Good Very Good
Comments: First American Edition. Hardback in very good condition with no markings. Dust jacket in very good condition with minor shelf wear. Tight binding and clear crisp text. Very nice book.
|
Editorial Reviews
|
Product Description
A fascinating journey through time and across Europe and Central Asia, in search of the prophet Zarathustra (a.k.a. Zoroaster)—perhaps the greatest religious lawgiver of the ancient world—and his vast influence.
In Persia more than three thousand years ago, Zarathustra spoke of a single universal god, the battle between good and evil, the devil, heaven and hell, and an eventual end to the world—foreshadowing the core beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Moving from present to past, Paul Kriwaczek examines the effects of the prophet’s teachings on the spiri-tual and daily lives of diverse peoples. Beginning in the year 2000 with New Year’s festivities in Iran, he walks us back through Nietzsche’s nineteenth-century interpretation of Zarathustra to the Cathars of thirteenth-century France and the ninth-century Bulgars; from ancient Rome to the time of Alexander the Great’s destruction of the Persian Empire; and, finally, to the time of Zarathustra himself.
Not only an enthralling travel book, In Search of Zarathustra is also a revelation of the importance of the prophet, and a brilliantly conceived and lucid explication of the belief systems that helped shape the European Enlightenment, the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, and the beginning of the Christian era. It is an enthralling study of a little-explored subject.
|
Customer Reviews
|
In the name of Iran
Rating  (1)
Date: 2007-06-04
3 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book was purchased so it can teach about faith of Zoroastrian and how this faith of Zoroastrian shaped other faiths. However, author of the book is not discussing faith of Zoroastrian, the author of the book begins to introduce his own bias political view on Iran's political culture. The author of the book begins to have way too far condescending tone on Iran's political culture. Overall, the author of the book has hostile tone on faith of Zoroastrian.
Example:
1. On Page 13, author begins to make personal attack on Pahlavi monarchy by stating that, in 1971, Queen Elizabeth did not attend Persepolis celebration just in case Shah wanted to make vulgar comment. According to the author Shah made a vulgar comment because Shah said that Cyrus the Great is my King, and Cyrus rest in peace. For we are awake. How Shah was vulgar toward anyone?
2. On Page 15, author states that Shah waged war against Islam, even last "Zoroastrian Shah's troops" was defeated against Islam. However, according to book "Spirituality in the land of noble" by Richard C. Foltz stated that during Shah, there was total religious freedom and absent of religious persecution.
3. On Page 88, author clearly states that "Modern Iranians call it Naqsh-e- Rustam, the Picture of Rustam, a legendry popular Iranian hero who was reputedly so strong that no feat was beyond him. It is s misnomer, the result of the great amnesia about their ancient past". This author on countless occasions was mocking Shahnameh written by Ferdosi.
4. On Page 89, this author mentioned that "this spot still wove such a spell on the psycho of later weavers of the Iranian imperial mantle-the Sassanians, who rule here from the third century-that, like children running to tell their parents all about their exploits they felt compelled to add their own more coarsely sculpture panels below ancient tombs". This author on countless occasions begins to patronize Iranian Monarchy from different dynasties.
5. On Page 92 this author loves Alexandra for burning Persepolis and believes Zoroastrian faith was a decay faith "in the West between the classical age of Rome and the Christianity of the Dark and Middle ages, in the East between the bright Hellenism of Alexandra's successors and the sudden reimposition and long-drawn-out decay of a revised Zoroastrianism- an interregnum that would last until Muslim conquest gave exhausted East a brilliant fresh start in the seventh century."
6. This author believes that Rome borrowed faith of Zoroastrian and reinvented new faith which is Mithraism. However, according to countless scholars, this faith of Mithras comes from Iran and spread globally.
Verdict:
This book is not worth buying and reading because it is waste of time and money. This author does not provide any kind of supporting document for his allegation, and is distorting historical facts. There is no wonder he used to work for BBC, and educated in England, this British people pretty much hate others.
|
|
Rather Clear Historical viewpoint
Rating  (4)
Date: 2005-10-25
3 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
Kriwaczek's research answers quite a few questions that I have always had about Zarathustra that saves rather tedious amounts of time researching for myself. This book may not be everyone's answer to everything, though. It is a rather sober perspective on Zarathustra's origins.
If you seek an enlightened religious reference regarding Nietzsche's viewpoints read Bhagwan Shree Rashneesh's Zarathustra, A God that can Dance. You will never view life the same way again. It is not a short book, and personally is taking a very long time for me to read because each page breaths life. Unlike some other reviewers here who are opinionated and dry as cement.
From the insert..."What a joy, what a delight! to discover 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra; coming alive in the discourses of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. With refreshing wit and clarity this Master takes Nietszche out of the dusty covers of academic analysis, extracting the essence of his work, illuminating the relevance of Zarathustra for anyone seeking the god with now-a God than can truly dance."
-Count Christoph Keyserligk
From the words of Bhagwan himself
"The day man forgets to laugh, the day man forgets to be playful, the day man forgets to dance, he is no more man; he has fallen into a subhuman species. Playfulness makes him light; love makes him light; laughter gives him wings. Dancing with joy, he can touch the farthest stars, he can know the very secrets of life. Zarathustra would like your life to be a garden where birds sing, where flowers blossom, where trees dance, where the sun comes with joy. Zarathustra is absolutely for life, and that is the reason why he does not have many followeres. The poisoners, the destructive people, have millions of followers. And a unique teacher and a unique mystic whose whole message is love and life, has got the smallest religion in the world...Zarathustra's religion shoud be the only religion. All other religions should be buried in the cemeteries, because except for life there is no God, and Except for love ther is no prayer."
|
|
Chatty, erudite and kaleidoscopic
Rating  (3)
Date: 2005-10-25
5 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Kriwaczek tells us that he has been fascinated by Zarathustra (or Zoroaster) since his school days, when his English teacher introduced the class to Nietzsche, and this pupil, "naturally enough ... went to the school library to find out what he had written", and found Thus Spake Zarathustra. Kriwaczek's book now purports to be a search for this elusive character, working backwards in time from Nietzsche. This quest would, as an adult (and at times as a television journalist), involve him in travelling all over the Middle East, Iran and Central Asia. The result is this vividly written account of his physical journeys in these lands, peppered with historical disquisitions, written with equal vividness, but whose origins, I suspect, had come from some decent libraries and guide books before he set out. In any case this is not the easiest way to convey a clear picture of the subject, and the problem is aggravated by two other features: the first is a helter-skelter backwards and forwards in time and in space. So, for example we travel within a few pages of one chapter from Carcassonne in France (p.74) to Derbent on the Caspian (p.75); a page later we are on the Trans-Siberian railway (p.76); on p.77 we are with the 13th century Tartars and on p.79 with 5th century BC Sarmatians!
The other feature is that Kriwaczek is so entertainingly knowledgeable about so much that he devotes pages on matters which have only the thinnest link with Zoroastrianism. Zarathustra himself had only one god, Ahura Mazda, and described all the other deities of his time as not deserving of the name. A very long time after his death, as Zoroastrianism departed from the original view of the prophet, it produced another god called Mithra, who seems to have borne a very similar relationship to Ahura Mazda as Jesus would bear to God the Father. Now the Romans also worshipped a god called Mithra, but, although Kriwaczek tells us that some modern scholars think that it was a mere coincidence that the same name was given to two gods who had nothing to do with each other, he devotes 2/3 of that chapter to telling us everything he knows about this Roman Mithras. Truth to tell, in the course of the book we really learn far more about Nietzsche, the Cathars, the Bogomils, the Sarmatians, the Romans, the Manichaeans and the Jews than we do about Zarathustra. Kriwaczek knows so much history that the slightest link he can establish with Zarathustra's teaching (or its later perversions) is enough to get him to unpack it all. The penultimate chapter ends, "Having mapped the Persian seer's influence back through the two and a half millennia that separate our own era from the dawn of Persian civilization, what remains in to seek out the traces of a time before ... recorded Iranian history began - the days of the First Prophet himself."
It was therefore with some eagerness that I looked forward to the last chapter for a comprehensive account of what Zarathustra stood for, but I found it a rather thin harvest. Yes, very likely Zarathustra was the first monotheist, the first who spoke of the End of Time, the first who saw life as a battle between Good and Evil, the first who taught that mankind has a choice between them, the first who summed up the duties of man as "Good Words, Good Thoughts, and Good Deeds". Yes, if we dig down through Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we can find a Zoroastrian substratum. And yes, I do understand that Kriwaczek would not call that a thin harvest; and I can see his point.
In any case, this is a rattling good read. There is a wealth of information here - some of it quite startling (for instance, that much of what we call Gothic is actually Sarmatian); the patches of history he tells us about are exciting and little known to the general reader; his enthusiasm is infectious; and his word painting is superb. The book was not what I expected from the title or what I think it ought to have been, but I enjoyed every page of it and am very glad I read it.
|
|
One of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long time
Rating  (5)
Date: 2005-02-10
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is written by a lay man for lay people, which means whether or not you already know anything about Zoroastrianism or the Persian empire, you can enjoy this book just as much as the next person, although more scholastic knowledge might actually enhance your enjoyment of this book. This book is a good, fun read, written by a fine author who imbues it with his sense of fascination for the past and his love of learning about different cultures. That alone makes it worth reading because you also will learn about the past and present and different cultures from a book which is written in a fast, easy style. Still, I think the best feature is the admirable way in which the author demonstrates a link between a religion that is over 3000 years old and the religions of today. In the end, whether you believe his arguments or not, you will have learned something that will change your outlook on religion. Few books have that kind of impact, and I highly suggest you avail yourself of the opportunity to learn something.
|
|
Paul Kriwaczek's joureny is a tantalizing tale
Rating (5)
Date: 2004-10-29
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
"in search of Zarathustra" is a fascinating tale of author's search for Zarathustra's influence in Judeo-Christianity religion. Without falling into academic endless debates and tiring arguments, Mr. Kriwaczek provides tangible and meaningful evidence backed by history, records and visible signs.
What I found most engaging in PK's book was his journey and how it pulls you in with every chapter and every passage only to reach a most wonderful climax at the end.
Zarathustra lived more than three thousand years ago and his followers are a few by today's standards. However the power of his message is in its simplicity and profoundness. How much more does one need to know or remember than to take side with the good and fight evil in this world, to practice good thought, good words and good deed? Perhaps the simplicity of this everlasting message is what is most powerful about it.
|
|
|
|
|