A review by bob_muller
The American Soul: TK by Jacob Needleman

2.0

While the ideas in the book are interesting, I found the writing almost impossible to get through. It's kind of like diving deep in the ocean: you can suit up with helmet and air tether and not get the real experience (read this book), or you can don scuba gear (read the usual histories), or you can develop gills (read the original letters, memoirs, and diaries). Each has advantages and disadvantages. Also, the focus of the book is on religion as the defining mode of understanding America (and mythologizing it, as the author puts it). I prefer more secular understanding based on modern stoic philosophies.