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Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-57131-305-8
Pages: 224
Publish Date: October 2011
Genre: Nonfiction
The Tree of the Doves
Ceremony, Expedition, War
BY Christopher Merrill
Taking several ageless questions—“Where do we come from? Where are we going? What shall we do?”—as his point of departure, award-winning author Christopher Merrill explores the related issues of terror, modernity, tradition, and epochal transformation. In three extended essays, Merrill observes the performance of a banned ritual in the Malaysian province of Kelatan; traces Saint-John Perse’s epic voyage from Beijing to Ulan Bator in 1921, and relates it to the China of today; and embarks on a trip across the Levant in 2007 in the wake of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Merrill asserts that it is in this trinity of human actions—ceremony, expedition, and war—that history is formed; and that the political, environmental, and social changes we’re witnessing now presage the end of one order and the creation of another.
A brilliant and wide-reaching exploration into the history and texture of our current “Age of Terror.”
OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR:
The Old Bridge
A moving, personal account of the tragic repercussions of the conflict in Bosnia.
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“Drawing on his literary gifts as an accomplished poet, Merrill provides a much-needed, truly illuminating perspective on these cultures, which is sadly missing from our mainstream media.”
—Booklist
“Christopher Merrill is on an ardent lifelong quest and luckily he is taking us along. His three journeys in The Tree of the Doves are deep,wandering investigations where the old world meets the new, where the person becomes politic, and where peace many times has just left the room. His capacious mind is great company and these are essays in the classic style, sojourns outward and inward, powerfully considered ethical wanderings from Malaysia to the Golan Heights. These embracing lessons in humanity, geography, and poetry make a special book.”
—Ron Carlson
