Steven Berg – författare

Provocative reinterpretation of Plato's Symposium.An original analysis of one of Plato's most well-known and pivotal dialogues, this study is based upon the effort to think together the most manifest themes of the Symposium (the nature of eros and the relation between poetry and philosophy) with its less obvious but no less essential themes (the character of the city and the nature and limitations of sophistic enlightenment). Author Steven Berg offers an interpretation of this dialogue wherein all the speakers at the banquet-with the exception of Socrates-not only offer their views on the nature of love, but represent Athens and the Athenian enlightenment. Accordingly, Socrates' speech, taken in relation to the speeches that precede it, is shown to articulate the relation between Socrates and the Athenian enlightenment, to expose the limitations of that enlightenment, and therefore finally to bring to light the irresolvable tension between Socrates and his philosophy and the city of Athens even at her most enlightened.

It is 1972 when Step Bronstad, a twenty-one-year-old from a Pacific Northwest logging town, finds himself in the throes of a country at war with North Vietnam. After he makes the decision to enlist in the Marines, Step has no idea his life is about to take a different and sudden turn.

When Step is suddenly pulled out of a military health examination and into a meeting in a stark back room, he is confronted by two CIA officers who seem to know entirely too much about his criminal past. Leaving Step with few options, the agents broker a top-secret deal: In exchange for his service running covert and dangerous antiterrorist errands for the CIA, Step avoids military service and potential prison time. As his missions lead him from America to England and eventually Germany, Step meets up with Gus Randall and George Holcomb, experienced CIA officers who soon place him in the middle of the Israeli hostage crisis at the Munich Olympic Games and in Turkey where he must combat Islamic terrorists.

Errand Runner is the gripping tale of a young CIA recruits perilous journey across the world as he sacrifices all he knows to fulfill contract obligations that change not only his life, but also the course of history.