Synopses & Reviews
In
Losing Moses on the Freeway, Chris Hedges, veteran war correspondent and author of the bestselling
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, delivers an impassioned, eloquent call to heed the wisdom of the 10 Commandments. Celebrated for his courageous reporting on the crucial issues of our time, Hedges, who graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School, explores the challenge of living according to these moral precepts we have tried to follow, often unsuccessfully, for the past 6,000 years. The commandments, he writes, do not save us from evil. Instead they save us from committing evil.
Inspired by unyielding faith, rigorous moral scrutiny, and a fierce sense of social responsibility, Hedges offers a breathtaking meditation on modern life. Losing Moses on the Freeway illustrates how the commandments usually choose us -- and how we are rarely able to choose them. We cannot protect ourselves from theft, greed, adultery, or envy, nor from the impulses that lead us to commit evil acts. In honoring the commandments, we free ourselves from self-worship and are called back to the healing solidarity of community. It is in the self-sacrifice championed by the commandments that integrity, commitment, and, finally, love are made possible.
Review
"Hedges's writing is engaging, but his reports are often brutally violent....His book is bound to make many readers uncomfortable, but perhaps the message needs to be heard." Library Journal
Review
"At a time when the mere mention of religion can excite so much passion... and discord, Losing Moses on the Freeway offers sane and bracing ways to think about, and rethink, the whole subject of faith." O, The Oprah Magazine
Review
"Unfailingly well-written, compelling, and disturbing.... It's not an easy faith that Hedges describes, and that is the point." The American Prospect
Review
"[Hedges] brings a broad and secular perspective to a deep examination of the principles of the Ten Commandments.... A deeply moving book." Vernon Ford, Booklist
Review
"Hedges' main point is that America is a nation marked by self-satisfaction, false piety, hypocrisy, and covetousness and that its institutions and culture aid and abet these very real failings.... If you're fed up with the sorry state of things in America today and aren't sure why, Hedges lays it out for you here." Baltimore Sun
Synopsis
The 10 Commandments the laws given to Moses by God are beyond the scope of human law. They are rules meant to hold us together but, when dishonored, they lead to discord and violence.
In this fierce, articulate narrative, Hedges, who graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School, looks through the lens of each commandment to examine the moral ruin of American society. With urgency and passion, he challenges readers to take a hard look at the disconnect between their supposed values and the shallow, self-absorbed lives many people actually lead.
Taking examples from his personal life and twenty years of reporting, Hedges explores one commandment at a time, each through a particular social group. With each story, he reveals the universal nature of personal suffering, discovery, and redemption and explores the laws that we have tried to follow, often unsuccessfully, for the past 6,000 years.
About the Author
Chris Hedges was a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades for
The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science
Monitor and National Public Radio. He was a member of the team that won the
2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for The New York Times
coverage of global terrorism, and he received the 2002 Amnesty International
Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. Hedges is the author of the bestseller
American Fascists and National Book Critics Circle finalist for War Is
a Force That Gives Us Meaning. He is a Senior Fellow at The Nation Institute
and a Lannan Literary Fellow and has taught at Columbia University, New York
University and Princeton University.