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    Unavailable
    How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror
    Unavailable
    How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror
    Unavailable
    How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror
    Audiobook7 hours

    How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror

    Written by Reza Aslan

    Narrated by Sunil Malhotra

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A cosmic war is a religious war. It is a battle not between armies or nations, but between the forces of good and evil, a war in which God is believed to be directly engaged on behalf of one side against the other.

    The hijackers who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, thought they were fighting a cosmic war. According to award-winning writer and scholar of religions Reza Aslan, by infusing the United States War on Terror with the same kind of religiously polarizing rhetoric and Manichean worldview, is also fighting a cosmic war-a war that can't be won.

    How to Win a Cosmic War is both an in-depth study of the ideology fueling al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, and like-minded militants throughout the Muslim world, and an exploration of religious violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Surveying the global scene from Israel to Iraq and from New York to the Netherlands, Aslan argues that religion is a stronger force today than it has been in a century. At a time when religion and politics are increasingly sharing the same vocabulary and functioning in the same sphere, Aslan writes that we must strip the conflicts of our world-in particular, the War on Terror-of their religious connotations and address the earthly grievances that always lie behind the cosmic impulse.

    How do you win a cosmic war? By refusing to fight in one.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 21, 2009
    ISBN9780739383315
    Unavailable
    How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror
    Author

    Reza Aslan

    Reza Aslan (he/him) is a writer and scholar of religions. He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife and 4 kids, so he knows a thing or 2 about trying to solve conflicts. Reza always wanted to be a writer. But his mom told him he had to get a "real job" first. So, he spent years at school earning a bunch of degrees so he could become a scholar of religions. Now, he gets to do both of those things: study religion and write books! A recipient of the prestigious James Joyce Award, Reza has written several internationally bestselling books, including the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. Reza is also an Emmy- and Peabody-nominated scholar and public intellectual who tries to help people make sense of the sometimes nonsensical things we all do in the name of religion and politics.

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    Reviews for How to Win a Cosmic War

    4/5

    35 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Interesting and thoughtful, though history, internationally and domestically, has proven wrong its hopeful and optimistic thesis, summed up in the epilogue. The cosmic war still rages. Neither ISIS nor Trumpism, both of which rose to power and prominence after the book's release, have any interest in not fighting a cosmic battle. The Arab Spring, which occurred shortly after the book's release, does vindicate Aslan's claim that the Muslim world thirsts for democracy. Regrettably and paradoxically, recent history vindicates an important feature of Aslan's thesis: a cosmic war cannot be won.
    • 1/5
      If one were writing for a creative writing course, this book would serve the purpose & it is quite creative...except that the author insists on being taken seriously. It's propaganda purpose with its usual tripe about perceived grievances & illusory historical dreams have nothing to do with the reality. The author repeats gossip & rumors in order to paint a very different picture of who's innocent & who's guilty yet history stands against him as a glaring light exposing inaccuracies & dishonesty he writes. Like Michael Belisiles' Arming America, this book serves as an example of those who's "axes to grind" sounds like a nonmusical person attempting to pass himself off as a concert violinist.
    • 5/5
      First and foremost, Aslan is an excellent author. His books fly by and read more like fiction than non-fiction. If you're someone who's normally afraid of non-fiction because it can sometimes be so slow, dry, and boring, then you'd probably love either of Aslan's books.How to Win a Cosmic War is based off of the lecture I saw him give last winter (thought it might be more accurate to say his lecture is based off of the book), so a lot of it was very familiar to me. Aslan puts this "War on Terror" into a new, and in my opinion, more correct perspective. Aslan claims that after 9/11, Bush played right into the hands of bin Laden and did exactly what he wanted. He made this into a cosmic war by dividing the world into good and evil: if you're not with the US, then you're with the terrorists. So what is a cosmic war, exactly, and how do you win one? It's a war where all parties involved believe God is on their side, and that they are fighting on behalf of God. It is good vs evil - Satan vs God - and the only way you can win a cosmic war is by refusing to fight one in the first place.Surprisingly, a lot is covered in under 200 pages. Aslan gives the reader a short history on the "Jihadist" movement and what that word actually means, as well as a little bit of history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the rise of the Evangelical movement in the US, a bit of Old Testament history, and different fanatical factions of both Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. It's all very interesting, but I think the most important thing for readers to understand is how the "Jihadists" differ from the majority of Muslims, and what we can do to put an end to it. You can't successfully fight them with weapons because there's an infinite supply of soldiers. There's countless angry, Muslim teens in the West who see the horrible things going on in Palestine, Iraq, etc. If Western governments address their legitimate grievances (and there are plenty of them), then people will stop being inspired to take up arms.I can't recommend this book enough, and I think it, just like No god but God, is a book everyone should read in order to gain a better and more accurate understanding of todays political climate, as well as the social, cultural, religious, and economic factors that brought us here.

      1 person found this helpful