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Books by Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman


Books can be ordered by email at: Lfarhat102@aol.com


How Do You Know That?
A Guide To Critical Thinking About Global Issues
More people alive today know more about more things affecting human experience than ever in history. We overflow with knowledge, have millions of books and journals and an Internet that updates information daily and spans the world. Despite this, we have a growing problem with being able to trust in the knowledge of our "experts" and "intellectuals." How can we know that they are really experts? Evaluating sources and critical thinking are crucial to making sound decisions, whether in policy making or determining your own future.
     
Strange Birds from Zoroaster's Nest
This is a book about religion, a human institution that can make us behave with utmost courage and love or with mindless hatred and violence. The roots of religion lie deep in the history of our species and in the unconscious minds of us all. There is a common core and many branches. A religion can begin in a burst of joy and enlightenment and then, within a thousand years, turn to pessimism and persecution.
Every religion has a dark underbelly, and as the educated and economically thriving sector of the world separates faith from state, the world's poor and ignorant are embracing the darkest aspects of traditional religion. The Cold War was nothing compared to the religious wars that we are facing now and into the future.
     
The Slave Who Lied But Once a Year--and Other Persian Tales
Laina Farhat-Holzman, a former professor of World History and Islamic Civlization, was married for many years to an Iranian whose mother became very close to her. During a long visit, the two women began to share fairy tales and folk tales with each other for fun. Farhat-Holzman translated the Iranian tales and packed them away until recently.
These stories, told to her aristocaratic mother-in-law by an illiterate nanny and servants, reveal much about the nature of everyday Persian life, values, and daydreams. They range from dreamy to unny and often wicked. They are definitely not for young children. They reveal the nature of a people who know how to get around tyranny.
     

God's Law or Man's Law
God's Law or Man's Law is an extremely timely warning about the dangers of radicalized religion on the global scene. This book surveys countries at risk of religious fascism, countries that have already lost secular rule, and the problem of cults across the world.
This survey of radicalized religion around the world was completed immediately before the September 11, 2001 attack on New York City and Washington, D.C., by religious zealots.
     

On Line Book: An Annotated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a collection of a 12th-century Persian astonomer-poet that was translated by a Victorian Englishman, Edward Fitzgerald. It has been a great favorite of the English-speaking world for more than a century, and has been translated from the English into a number of other languages.

This is the first annotated version of this work, with an analysis of how well Fitzgerald did this translation, and how he managed to transfer the puns, irony, Persian mythology, and rhythm of the original into English. Fitzgerald said that he preferred a live Eagle to a stuffed owl (translating word for word would be the stuffed owl).

For those of you who remember this work, do enjoy this edition.

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