Eric Foner (http://www.ericfoner.com/) offers a sweep of American history with the idea of freedom as the main subject. He focuses on three major themes: 1) different meanings of freedom, 2) social conditions that made freedom possible, and 3) the boundaries and exclusions of freedom. The main understandings of freedom have been ‘civil liberties’; being free from outside coercion; economic liberty; […]
The Story of American Freedom Read More »
The presence of peculiar forms of life such as the horseshoe crab, the nautilus, echinoids, and assorted other animals and plants puzzled Darwin. How could these species have survived millions of years with little change while most other species evolved, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, and then mostly becoming extinct? He resolved the question to his
On Methuselah’s Trail Read More »
The experience of looking at art has neurobiological correlates in the brain. Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain describes these. Semir Zeki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semir_Zeki) uses a range of examples from artists including Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Magritte, Malevich and Picasso. The book constitutes a kind of aesthetic tour of the brain. Zeki offers a systematic
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The mass emigrations from Scotland, beginning in earnest in the late 18th century and lasting through most of the 19th, have shaped the country we live in today. Marjory Harper (https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/cultural/centre-for-history/staff/professor-marjory-harper/) tells the story of the evictions and emigration from Highlands and Lowlands. She also understands the ambition that drove many to seek out a
Adventurers & Exiles Read More »
It’s often useful to absorb the best arguments of thinkers whom one disagrees with most sharply. Only then can your own position be strengthened. In the same way, a chess player wishing to improve seeks out the strongest opponent. In this book Philippa Foot (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/05/philippa-foot-obituary) sets out a naturalistic theory of ethics, which she calls
Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot Read More »
One of the texts from the Ancient world of lasting influence, and which can still be enjoyed with sympathy by the modern reader, is Meditations (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/#ChaMed) by Marcus Aurelius. This Roman Emperor spent most of his life campaigning against barbarians, dealing with conspiracy at home, and combating Christianity. Yet the most powerful man in the world
The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot Read More »
Anyone with a passion for understanding the ancient world will have this book on their shelves. It is a vivid account of the Jewish people from the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE to the revolt of the Maccabees. With great skill and scholarship Elias J. Bickerman (http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/02/obituaries/elias-j-bickerman-a-hellenic-scholar-on-columbia-staff.html) relates the story
The Jews in the Greek Age Read More »
Catching a mysterious pool of early morning sunlight playfully cast across his kitchen ceiling gave Caspar Henderson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_Henderson) pause for wonder. The experience inspired him to think more closely about the nature of wonder. His reflections have issued in this enthusiastic tour of much that seems ordinary but which is upheld by the complex and
A New Map of Wonders by Caspar Henderson Read More »
In this sweeping history of Russia over the past four decades, Masha Gessen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masha_Gessen) argues that totalitarian Soviet mentality did not die out with the Soviet Union. Gessen reveals what life is like under the Putin tyranny through a cast of characters. For example Lyosha, a young gay man in a toxically anti-gay provincial
The Future is History Read More »
Strange and upsetting things have been happening in the world recently. A great many people are believing weird things and acting on them. Conspiracy theories such as Q-Anon (QAnon – Wikipedia) abound, whilst the consequences of irrational motivations can be terrible. Theodore Schick has offered one of the best primers I’ve come across for
How to Think About Weird Things by Theodore Schick Read More »
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan (http://jenniferegan.com/about/), offers us this historical fiction set in New York in the first half of the 20th century. In this novel her focus moves from time to water, which is shown to have the power both to heal and to destroy. Anna Kerrigan, the novel’s
In this book David Gelernter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gelernter), a professor of computer science at Yale, argues that the current trend in cognitive science toward ‘computationalism’ ignores basic, glaringly obvious truths about the difference between brain and mind. He makes the case that human intellect and selfhood are not merely the product of a calculating brain. He explores
Marina Warner’s (http://www.marinawarner.com/home.html) achievement in this excellent book is to trace the different meanings which have been ascribed to the female form throughout the ages. She examines a wide range of material art (Donatello, Vermeer, Judy Chicago), Greek mythology, the Bible, world literature, linguistics and mass media. Warner suggests that some women (the armed maidens of
Monuments and Maidens Read More »
November 2018 will see the centenary of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 when the guns fell silent after 4 years of one the bloodiest conflicts in human history. There have been a huge number of histories of The First World War, and here is one with much to commend it. In Peter Englund’s
The Beauty and the Sorrow Read More »
In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/copernicus/) publicly defended the hypothesis that the Earth is a planet and the sun a body resting near the centre of a finite universe. Copernicus’s reordering of the universe mattered because it was the first in a string of new and daring scientific claims at odds with traditional representations of
The Copernican Question Read More »
