vindaloo

Just finished reading an interesting book called: Why the nations rage: Killing in the name of GOD. It provides an interesting perspective on the entire jihad ideology followed by certain men. I liked the way the author went systematically into the history of the entire war and dated event back to the 6 and 7 hundred AD. I love history and this book added a lot to my kitty.
Actually i read the book twice from cover to cover, still some of the terms in the book, I just could not comprehend. In reality I am probably going to rent the book from the library one more time and read it again. Well the content in the book is more of a study and I read the book in a story reading format and have not been able to grasp all the content as yet, especially the parts on the history of the balkans. Well the balkans are a very interesting part of the world because they have always been in the thick of things and that is what makes their history so interesting. I will have to get a few books more on the topic though as this one just has brief entries in it.
inspite of the fact that title of the book would suggests it is a book on Religion it is more about Nationalism, and how people cofuse nationality with their religious beliefs and the problems that the confusion creates.
There were a few very interesting quotes in the book,

Self-determination becomes... dangerous when a nation state becomes exclusive rather than inclusive... This is because “as a cultural ideal, nationalism is the claim that while men and women have many identities, it is the nation which provides them with their primary form of belonging.”

This is a good book for anyone who wants to get a perspective of the rationale behind religous wars. This book is based on the writings of several other authors. The thought the author is trying to portray is A person’s identity — their sense of self and of who they are — will be made up from many different elements: religion, family, gender, community, ethnicity, race, and so forth. In the modern world, nationality is a part of this list and there is nothing wrong with that. Nationality is no more an invalid ingredient in one’s sense of personal identity than ethnicity or race.

With this book I promised myself to get back to reading more about Eastern European history.