Get Your Read On

We’ve been doing a lot of reading these past weeks, and thought we might share of few of our favorites.  Just to note – Richard has been keeping his Shelfari shelf more or less up to date for a couple of years, so you can jump over there and see more reviews and lists.  So here it is – what we are reading on Colombia, Theology, and beyond!

From Mamie:

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
- A memoir in which Perkins’ says his function was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. Saddled with huge debts they could not hope to pay, these countries were forced to acquiesce to political pressure from the United States on a variety of issues.

Walking Ghosts by Steven Dudley
- Dudley’s book, which is based on a master’s thesis he wrote while filing reports for the Washington Post and National Public Radio in Colombia in the late 1990s, seeks to dig out the complicated roots of the political party the Unión Patriótica. This leads him into tangled accounts of the FARC, drug trafficking and paramilitarism. The book is dense, but compelling.  (For First United folks, Steven Dudley is a child of the church, son of Carl and Shirley Dudley)

From Richard:

Evil Hour in Colombia by Forrest Hylton
- Hylton draws together a very detailed, historical look at the Colombian state since its inception – and it is still readable!  The best single source on Colombia’s history of progressive movements followed by severe counter-reaction, all leading to today’s Colombia, described by Hylton as “War as Peace.”

God and Empire by John Dominic Crossan
- Crossan studies the early church and the formation and context of the New Testament – all under the lens of the Roman Occupation, and what God is saying in general about occupation.  It is fascinating how we often overlook this all-encompassing fact of first and second century Mediterranean life when we look at the New Testament.  It is certainly interesting to me to read this book in the context of Colombia, as a citizen of the United States, and think about what God is saying to us as members of the empire today.

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Ok, so its not all heady stuff.  We just finished reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Richard is finally ready to dive in to Reducido al Reino de los Pingüinos, a chapter book in Spanish!  If you have suggestions for further reading, throw them in the comments!