http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1979182.html[return][return]I was really impressed by this historical account of religious fundamentalism (well, of Christian, Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism) over the centuries up to 1999. I have not always been convinced by Armstrong's approach of parallelling changes in different cultures that happened at the same time, but this worked really well for me, disposing breezily with the importance of balancing logos and mythos, tracking the different religions' responses to the Enlightenment and modernisation, and then exploring the parallel rise of hardline fundamentalist reaction in all three traditions during the late twentieth century. For the most recent period, Armstrong also restricts her geographical focus down to the USA for Christianity, Israel for Judaism, and Egypt and Iran for Islam, which means of course that all kinds of interesting material from elsewhere is simply omitted. But those are all fascinating countries, and I found her analyses of the religious politics of Israel and Iran particularly illuminating.[return][return]Writing in 1999, Armstrong thought that fundamentalism was establishing a new equilibrium after a period when it had appeared insurgent and had then suffered a series of defeats in the 1980s and 1990s. I think she would now agree that we have seen a distinct rise in the strength of fundamentalism in all three traditions in the years since. In the last few pages she looks at how the rest of us should deal with fundamentalism. Repression does not work, she points out, and indeed makes these movements stronger; we must remember that they are based on fear and incomprehension. Rather we should challenge fundamentalists on their own ground, on their lack of compassion for their fellow human beings; this is where they miss a crucial core value to all three of the religious traditions. Definitely worth reading if you are interested in understanding the extremists.

This is a best-of anthology, with stories drawn from the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. Although I would normally think of the first two of those decades as the heyday of engineer-driven rocketship stories, there is just one example from that category here, and considerably more in the way of literary or mildly experimental approaches than I would have expected for that time period. I’m not sure whether to attribute that to early signs of the New Wave beginning to take shape, or the literary leanings of [a:Kingsley Amis|13078|Kingsley Amis|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1206565493p2/13078.jpg] as editor.

While the editorial voice does show up in the story selection, the editing was otherwise fairly lazy, with no introductions or story notes. The only commentary from either editor comes in the form of a transcript of an interesting, but contextless conversation between Amis, [a:CS Lewis|8417568|CS Lewis|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png], and [a:Brian W. Aldiss|33297|Brian W. Aldiss|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1333457329p2/33297.jpg]. It’s curious that this was included, as it’s basically a literary fencing contest, in which Amis comes off as a snobby egotist and Lewis as an effete academic.

As with any anthology that is decades old, the story themes provide a fascinating lens through which to view the obsessions of an earlier era. In this case, there is a clear sense that the fifties were a time when there were frontiers to be explored everywhere. Not just the physical unknown, like outer space, but also psychological territory like dreams, the subconscious, and ESP. It’s easy to dismiss these as faddish preoccupations from our vantage point, but these stories were written at a time when the discovery that depriving yourself of dreams would drive you insane was a cutting-edge scientific result, rather than a cliché.

Although these brave new inner frontiers must have seemed exciting at the time, the associated predictions are just as short-sighted as technological predictions often are, dwelling on details that now seem unimportant while missing the obvious. Fear of robots, for example, is a prevalent theme in several stories, but with the primary concern being the effects of automation, rather than speculation about conscious machines.

None of the stories were standouts, but at several were decent enough to be memorable. Among them are [a:John Brunner|23113|John Brunner|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1336955014p2/23113.jpg]’s “Such Stuff”, a mild horror story of mental parasitism that works only because it is so grippingly written; [a:Cordwainer Smith|11390|Cordwainer Smith|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1244379873p2/11390.jpg]’s “A Planet Named Shayol”, an effective story that raises questions about pleasure drugs, organ harvesting, punishment and consent, all set on a prison planet; and [a:Damon Knight|48888|Damon Knight|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1322100972p2/48888.jpg]’s “The Stranger Station”, a multilayered, lonely story about the complete inability to communicate with an alien species that asks when one is justified in harming one group to save another. All three of these, and indeed most of the good stories in the book, are psychological internal dramas, rather than action-adventure stories. [a:Anthony Boucher|2454|Anthony Boucher|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1328612149p2/2454.jpg]’s “The Barrier” should have been the perfect combination of topics for me: a loopback time travel story that featured linguistics fairly heavily (two of my soft spots), but it fell somewhat short. It’s interesting in part because it’s an alternative history story, but written in the early 1940's when the author didn’t yet know who would win World War II.

I’m not familiar (yet) with any of the other entries in the Spectrum series, but I’m now interested to read them. Is the quality relatively lackluster in this entry because the editors had already mined their favorites? Or do they each have a different thematic feel? I’m curious to find out.