Stephen Schwartz

This eye-opening, insightful exploration of Sufism, the spiritual tradition that has supported Islam for more than a thousand years, shows why it offers a promising foundation for reconciliation between the Western and Muslim worlds. Many Americans today identify Islam with maniacal hatred of the West. The Other Islam transforms this image and opens the way to finding common ground in our troubled times. Sufism, a blend of the mystical and rational tendencies within Islam, emerged soon after the revelation of Muhammad. A reforming movement against the increasing worldliness of Muslim society, it focuses on Islam's spiritual dimension. Described as "Islam of the Heart," Sufism has attracted adherents among both Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, as well as Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists.In The Other Islam, Stephen Schwartz traces the origins and history of Sufism, elucidates its teachings, and illustrates its links to the other religions. He comments on such celebrated Sufi poets and philosophers as Rumi and Al-Ghazali, and narrates their influence on the Kabbalah, on the descendants of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and on Christian mystics like Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila as well as the American transcendentalists. Furthermore, Schwartz presents a fresh survey of Sufism in today's Islamic world, anticipating an intellectual renaissance of the faith and alternatives to fundamentalism and tyranny in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran.

"In this polemic, journalist and author Stephen Schwartz confronts the myth of a Jewish lobby head on, asking questions that no one else has dared to pose. What is the "Jewish lobby"? How powerful is it? What was its involvement in the preparations for war in Iraq? Was there really a "cabal" of neoconservative Jews in the administration of George W. Bush? How did AIPAC officials come to be accused, in 2004, of espionage? Above all, what is good for the Jews, and who decides it?" "Ultimately, Schwartz concludes that in today's America a "Jewish lobby" may no longer be necessary. In the face of the threatened collapse of the lobby, he argues, American Jews should openly and proudly assume their proper role as moral and religious exemplars for their fellow Americans and cease acting like a frightened minority."--Jacket.

Collects two novels about witches, Holly Cather and her twin cousins, Amanda and Nicole, who are caught up in an intergenerational feud between rival clans.

In this informed, compelling exploration of Moslem beliefs and of the sectarian conflicts within the community, a Jewish historian paints a sympathetic portrait of mainstream Islam and exposes the centuries-old roots of Osama bin Laden's extremism.

Artfully weaving together the strands of California's social, political, and cultural history, Schwartz chronicles the state's turbulent life from the Spanish conquest through the Civil War, the labor movement, the Great Depression, and the birth of modern cultural radicalism in the Beatnik revolution and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement.

Song lyrics and narrative text present the life of the man who was chosen by God to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.

The victory of Violeta Chamorro in the Nicaraguan presidential election of 1990 culminated a dramatic struggle waged by the Nicaraguan people against the Sandinistas--and against their apologists in the American media and policy elites. A totalitarian Marxist regime was toppled--by popular vote--in favor of democracy. Such events typically would have been covered in vigorous detail by the American media. But our media greeted Mrs. Chamorro's triumph with a strange silence. Why? A Strange Silence: The Emergence of Democracy in Nicaragua is the first book to explain what made the Chamorro victory possible and why the U.S. media failed to tell the full story behind the Nicaraguan democratic revolution. Stephen Schwartz has challenged his colleagues in the press, the academy, and the intellectual class, marshaling details and analysis that rip away the screen of ideology from Nicaraguan history, politics, and culture. Based on his encounters with the leaders of Nicaragua's struggle for democracy, including the elusive "Comandante Zero" Eden Pastora, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, and the courageous editor of La Prensa, Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Schwartz weaves a fascinating narrative--provocative, polemical, and passionate--of the Nicaraguan revolution as seen by the Nicaraguans themselves. Schwartz exposes the distortions of perceptions found among American supporters of the Sandinista regime--and why the same media that acclaimed the fall of the Berlin Wall let the stunning Nicaraguan election of 1990 pass in virtual silence. A staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, Schwartz has combined his extensive expertise in Hispanic culture and his work as a historian of the cultural and political left to create a unique account of the Nicaraguan and American drama of 1979-1990. This book is an evocative portrait of a time, a country, and a movement--and an eloquent examination of ideological corruption in the intellectual elite.