Throughout his distinguished career, Edward O. Wilson has brought a vast wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge to bear on some of humanity’s most complex and pressing questions. The Meaning of Human Existence is his most philosophical work, and contains many worthwhile insights about humanity’s origins and possible futures. Wilson’s method, best characterized as a kind of […]
This is definitely the best resource I’ve encountered for a crash course in the root causes of climate change and the potential negative outcomes if the global community continues to ignore the problem. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have condensed years of research into a tiny book––all the better to penetrate the noosphere of a […]
Every human struggle needs an image of a better future for supporters to rally around, but it’s never enough to simply know where we want to end up. The accomplishment of profound societal change, if sought peacefully, also demands a set of linguistic and psychological frames revolutionaries can use to inform, impassion, and ultimately persuade […]
After several years of observing the barrage of praise that’s been heaped upon Cloud Atlas by friends and critics, I finally sat down to read it, convinced it couldn’t possibly live up to the hype. One hundred pages in, I’d already dismissed David Mitchell’s well-loved book as nothing more than a garish, sprawling, unfocused coterie […]
In this novel’s table of instructions, Julio Cortázar states that Hopscotch “consists of many books, but two books above all.” The reader is given a choice: read the book in normal fashion and stop at the end of Chapter 56 (in which case a large portion of the book will remain unread), or jump between […]
This book’s title might connote a tense battlefield, with ruler-brandishing teachers firmly entrenched against the remonstrations of an angry citizenry. But, like any serious student of history, author Dana Goldstein knows such simplistic images belie the messy truth about wars, which is that they are rife with broken borders, double crossings, unexpected victories, and crushing […]
I almost quit reading this book after the first few chapters. Bernard Williams’ opaque arguments about metaphysics and epistemology––hardly my favorite philosophy subjects––are enervating to the point of somnolence. I’ve never enjoyed or been particularly enlightened by analytical philosophy, which typically deploys the tropes of formal logic to imbue philosophical arguments with an air of […]
The Culture universe is an undeniably brilliant creation, containing more than one writer’s fair share of imaginative inventions and astonishing moments. I have been impressed with every Culture novel I’ve read, but often complete them wondering what Banks could have done to warm my heart the same way he enchants my brain. After this refreshing […]
John Dewey is my intellectual hero, so taking up one of his works is always a distinct pleasure for me. There is no other thinker at this point in my life who can challenge and delight me the way Dewey does; his philosophy is deeply contemplative but also distinctly practical, and his insights reflect the […]
Given the recent popularity of post-apocalyptic narratives, it seems a good time to pick up Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon. Frank’s portrait of a small Florida community coping with nuclear fallout is an early contribution to the genre, one that demonstrates considerable cleverness and technical merit. Sadly, this story of Cold War-era anxiety and ingenuity has […]