(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Both the United States and Islam are highly visible among this fall's prose books from the Norwegian publishers. The books on Islam will be in line:
In a new book, religious scientist Oddbjørn Leirvik will talk about the relationship between Muslims and Christians in Arabia and Baghdad, about the Spanish Golden Age, the Crusades and the Islamic Renaissance up to our days. In the book at Pax's publishing house, Leirvik also addresses political issues such as state and religion, human rights, gender power and violence. Professor Kari Vogt comes up with a new book on Islam at Cappelen, while Lars Gule of the Human-Ethical League writes about Islam and modernity at Abstract Publishing.
Nazneen Khan-Östrem writes about My Holy War (Aschehoug), and takes us on his personal pilgrimage in search of Muslim diversity. Everywhere she asks: What is Islamic identity, and how does it unfold in the face of the West's values? Is the contradiction as strong as many think? Or is it just a myth that Islam is incompatible with the West's way of life?
Autumn's religious books are not just about Islam, far from it. Pax publishes the religious historian Gro Steinsland's overview work on religion and mythology in the Viking Age. Gunnar Stålsett has written about charity (Gyldendal). Father Kjell-Arild Pollestad tells the story of Bernadette Soubirou (Cappelen), the young girl from a small French village who had seen the Virgin Mary reveal herself to her. Now pilgrims millions of Catholics and about sixty thousand Muslims each year to the village of Lourdes.
Comedian Anne-Kat Hærland probably has a different angle on important questions when she writes about War and peace and religion and politics and such… (Aschehoug). The publisher assures us that "if anyone has thought that stand-up could not be transferred from stage to book form, Anne-Kat emphatically puts them here".
United States and Moore
At Abstrakt forlag, Bjørn Erik Rasch has edited a book on American politics, where experts from various disciplines disseminate and comment on knowledge about the political system in the USA. Cappelen comes with a book about the different country America, written by Associate Professor Ole. O. Moen. Arne Overrein's The struggle for international law discusses the experiences from the wars in Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan, terrorism and the United States' special relationship with the UN and international law. Is an international legal order at all a realistic possibility? At Abstrakt forlag, Janne Haaland Matlary and Øyvind Østerud have edited a book on parallel topics, and ask if we are moving "towards a de-nationalized defense".
Aschehoug has also arranged for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 to be translated – an official guide. The book contains, among other things, the script for the documentary of the same name – which has broken one viewer record after another, and created an international debate about the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.
About fundamentalism of all kinds
Fredrik S. Heffermehl writes about Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear engineer who became one of the world's most famous political prisoners. Heffermehl met his friend for the first time in 2004, after exchanging letters with him for sixteen years. By then Vanunu had spent close to twelve years in solitary confinement, in a cell of six m2. "Vanunu's case is about big politics," Heffermehl writes in the book published by Aschehoug. Odd Karsten Tveit describes Norway's role in the Palestine conflict from 1978 to 1996, and brings out new sides to the secret Norwegian Middle East diplomacy in the 1980 century.
Fundamentalism is also Bent Sofus Tranøy's theme – the market fundamentalists. In The market's power over the senses (Aschehoug), Tranøy takes a stand against their belief that the market can be used for everything and their worldview where everything is for sale: care, culture, education, aluminum and haircuts. The book discusses market fundamentalism both from research and from everyday experience.
At Gyldendal, Karsten Alnæs presents The History of Europe – Breakup. Jung Chang – who experienced a great international success with the family saga Wild Swans – has together with the historian and husband Jon Halliday written the unknown story about Mao.
Another historian, Hans Petter Sjøli, has written the history of the AKP (Cappelen). Here he discusses whether the members of the AKP (ml) engaged in weapons training and monitoring of political opponents, and he describes how and why several of the members went underground.
Nils Johan Lavik and Nora Sveaas write about Political Psychology – the interplay between psychological processes and political activity on a broad basis (Pax). They address both the causes and consequences of political violence such as torture, war, genocide, terrorism and flight.
The thinking from Rousseau to Habermas is the theme of Lars Løvlie (Abstract). Forming as a concept has undergone a renaissance in the last decade in the discussion of pedagogy, school and society, especially for those who want a school that goes beyond narrow institutional and market liberal objectives.
Independence and history
Also this autumn, there will be more books that are more or less directly related to the centenary of the dissolution of the union. Pax Forlag publishes Norsk Hydro's history in three large volumes – a hundred years of history that are closely intertwined with the country's history. At Cappelen, Selma Lønning Aarø and Line Baugstø have edited Hundred Years of Loneliness, where thirteen fiction writers write about the Constitution. Another book based on the celebration of the centenary of independence is Norway – a small piece of world history by Stian Bromark and Dag Herbjørnsrud. Otherwise, Atle Thowsen, historian and director at the Bergen Maritime Museum, has written about Christian Michelsen at Aschehoug.
The Data Protection Authority is only celebrating a quarter of a century this year, but it was nevertheless a good opportunity to address various privacy issues. The Directorate of Data Inspector Georg Apenes has had discussions on this, including with Bernt Hagtvet, Kristin Clemet and Iver B. Neumann (Pax). Also at Pax, Ottar Brox writes about labor imports, and psychiatrist Svein Haugsgjerd about Love's power lines.
No book harvest without books about World War II. The theme seems inexhaustible: Stein Ugelvik Larsen draws "a broad sociological portrait" of the front fighters – the thousands of young Norwegian boys who went into German service during the war (Pax), while Gyldendal comes up with a new publication of Albert Speers' memoirs. Albert Speer was also called "the good Nazi".
Music and art
Edward Said is primarily known as a cultural theorist and author of i.a. Orientalism. Pax Forlag publishes his Musical Considerations – as a long-time music critic, Said was concerned with the musician's role, and the performer's vulnerable position. Said criticizes Europeans' Eurocentrism, both in music and in music criticism, but addresses many other issues.
Also at Pax, another prominent art theorist is translated, the American art philosopher and critic Arthur Danto, the originator of what is often called institutional art analysis. What distinguishes art from non-art today, what is defined as art, where and when?
Kant, Stuart Mill and Popper
Pax Filosofi presents the first complete Norwegian translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, and the first Norwegian translation of John Stuart Mills' The Oppression of Women. Mill's feminist, liberal position is highly relevant in relation to current discussions about the relationship between the sexes. Of other significant translations we can mention Karl Popper – best known for the falsification criterion in the theory of science and the critique of authoritarian societies and the defense of the open society.
And to end with an international Norwegian: Gyldendal honors Thor Heyerdahl, both with Heyerdahl's best lyrics by Heyerdahl, and Ragnar Kvam's book The Man and the Sea.
