Written by a Harvard law professor, this book touches on a myriad of social topics. He uses the backdrop of Star Wars to investigate and explain social life and cultural phenomena. Beginning with the unlikely and unexpected success of the first movie and subsequent franchise, Sunstein reviews how Lucas developed the story over time. He then goes on to explain how the interacting factors of quality, social influences, timing, and cultural resonance made the success possible.

Moving away from the movies themselves and diving deeper into their reflections on humanity, the author discusses thirteen different lenses through which to view the films, some of which are Christianity, oedipal, feminist, political, authoritarian, behavioral science, technology, jihadist, and satanic.

The most interesting chapters meditate on more social and philosophical issues. The enduring conflict between fathers and sons is a well-known storyline that has historical appeal. The ideas of freedom of choice and how choices are what underlie the plot and characters and life itself. He then moves on to the political turmoil implicit in empires, republics, and rebels.

Though not completely unique, the idea of studying life and culture through the perspective of Star Wars is fun and interesting. An astute law professor as the author brings a different slant to the genre. He provides some valuable nuggets of knowledge and lots of opportunity for contemplation. Possibly written before its time, I could not help but wonder what Sunstein would have said after the 2016 election and presidency.

Charming,challenging and all over the map.

Sunstein is no light weight, and he turns considerable thought here to .... Star Wars. And from the depths of philosophy, psychology, history and constitutional law, he draws quite a lot of interesting angles from the Galaxy Far, Far Away. For as slim a book as this is, it's quite thought provoking and actually kind of daunting. ( )

The World According to Star Wars is a Non-ficton composition about how Star Wars became a pop culture phenomenon. Some topics covered are how Star Wars became popular, how popularity spreads, rebellion, and politics. This novel covers Star Wars roots. In this book, there are previous interviews George Lucas had talking about how the story could be different. There is even talk about the original novel. It is detailed and tells the story well. This book talks about how A New Hope could be interpreted.

The book goes in depth how an unknown movie would be so popular with the cascade effect.It shows how children and adults alike. It goes on with topics like freedom of choice. With such a surprise success as Star Wars. Was it so amazing, or was it good timing. Political aspects like how imperialism spreads, one person having too much power. Darth Vader reaches redemption by helping look and talks about it.

There is some interesting essays in this collection. Nothing spectacularly noteworthy, but nothing really cringe-worthy / horribly written / "stupid".

I will say the author's voice comes through pretty heavily (which can be either a good thing or a bad thing), in this case its mostly good but he does come off as a bit pretentious and "always right". His attempts at humor often fall flat, and his constant attempts to push the prequel trilogy as "good" or "better" than the Original trilogy is borderline blasphemy. None of the essays were boring, which is definitely a plus, but not all of them seemed 'fantastically intelligent' or 'brilliant genius' or anything akin to that, but they all at least have some kind of depth and are at least interesting enough. The relationship to Star Wars is tenuous at best in some of the essays, but is there (albeit just like "oh hey this real world connection is like character X or event X from the movies).

An interesting collection of essays that big fans of Star Wars might enjoy, but overall pretty forgettable and easily skipp-able. ( )

NF