The yuppie couple in this novel, no strangers to anger, covetousness and envy, now confront great violence -- and the suspicion that it is home-grown.
We borrow from other countries to finance our consumption, and we borrow from our children by saddling them with debt, using up nonrenewable resources, and failing to confront great challenges in income inequality, climate change, and global health.
It was challenging enough to live through the George W Bush years, in which a man with little experience and questionable leadership skills was called upon to confront great national and international trials.
Robert Jordan and John McCain each confront great tests (the temptation to escape a doomed mission for one, the offer of early prison release for the other) in the service of a lost cause (the socialists in the Spanish Civil War, the Americans in Vietnam).
But he may have gained the power to confront great loss without reduction of love, gratitude or awe.
Consequently, it is also not surprising that there should be a widespread perception that university students, most graduates, scientific specialists, engineers and other academic workers all confront great difficulties in their technical reading which prevent them from effectively accessing specialist information in their work and study.
Yet the legal industry itself has been confronting great pressures.
The agricultural sector in developing countries is confronting great changes determined by industrialization and modernization, eliminated subsidies, environmental constraints, land use conflicts, biotechnology, and increased overall risk.
The goal, Mr. Bush's advisers said, is to make the election more about the nation's success in confronting great challenges than about Mr. Bush personally.
The distributed energy systems and efficient utilization of traditional fossil fuel are confronting great opportunities under present energy framework in which coal power dominating and renewable energy emerging gradually.
