Ernest Gellner: an intellectual biography

Catherine Hezser finds that John A. Hall’s biography of one of the most prominent social anthropologists of our time provides fascinating reading on issues and debates which are still of utmost importance. Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography. John A. Hall. Verso. 2011. Paperback edition

Oral and Written Communication and Transmission of Knowledge in Ancient Judaism and Christianity

This paper examines the contexts of oral communication and the use of written messages in Josephus’ writings, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature, and discusses the possible reasons for using orality or writing in the respective Jewish and Christian contexts in antiquity. It is argued that an individual’s social power depended on his position within the communication network and his ability to control and manipulate the dissemination of knowledge among his co-religionists. Mobility was an important means of creating these networks and the most mobile rabbis would have been the most well-connected

Book review: violence and understanding in Gaza: the British broadsheets’ coverage of the war by Dávid Kaposi

Instead of asking who is innocent and who should be blamed, the media should start to treat the Israel-Palestine conflict as a story of mutually painful but very real human relations, argues Dávid Kaposi in his new book. Catherine Hezser hopes that journalists will take up Kaposi’s suggestions and initiate a more complex, balanced, and historically-informed discourse on Israel and Hamas/Palestinians

Book review: among the ruins: Syria past and present by Christian C. Sahner

Among the Ruins blends history, memoir and reportage, drawing on the author’s extensive knowledge of Syria in ancient, medieval, and modern times. The author’s status as an outsider who deeply immersed himself in Syrian life, culture, and history enables him to write from a non-partial perspective and to share his deep knowledge of Syria with other “outside” readers who seek a deeper understanding beyond news reports of the Syrian “catastrophe”, writes Catherine Hezser