EGGHEAD CHOICE – Crack open for a hard boiled think

This is a treat for anyone who is already convinced by the ideas of evolutionary biology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biology) or wishes an introduction to them. Here is a question…Will people born in the 1990s in the developed world live as long as those born 60 years ago? The upward trend in life expectancy of the last century […]

Few works of economic and political analysis are worth reading 60 years after publication. The Opium of the Intellectuals (1955), by French intellectual Raymond Aron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Aron) is one of them. The author shows how noble ideas can slide into the tyranny of secular religion and emphasizes how political thought has the profound responsibility of telling the

One of my favourite contemporary philosophers is Simon Blackburn (http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/). A lot of this is to do with his willingness to address his books to a popular audience. He is never less than lucid and informative. I feel a wry but honest smile behind much of his commentary. His is a cool, powerful, analytical mind.

Journalist and polemicist Rod Liddle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Liddle) likes to ‘mix it up’. I heard about Selfish Whining Monkeys (2014) on Radio 4’s ‘Start the Week’ on Monday. It sounded enjoyably provocative. Here is the trade description: ‘With a sharp eye for the magnificently absurd, Rod Liddle sets light to modern-day Britain. In the western world, on

It’s hard to imagine a cockroach being bored. It simply gets on with what a cockroach does and then dies. Boredom seems only to be a possibility for organisms capable of reflective consciousness. Schopenhauer treated boredom as worthy of philosophical consideration. He thought it was lethal and that it proved the vanity of human existence. Heidegger,

In this widely acclaimed work from 1983, Benedict Anderson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Anderson and http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/benedict-anderson/) examines the creation and global spread of the ‘imagined communities’ of nationality. He explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialization of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time.

Ian Frazier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Frazier and http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111023952) trains his perceptive, generous eye on Siberia, the expanse of Asiatic Russia with a grim renown. In Travels in Siberia (2010), Frazier reveals Siberia’s role in history – its science, economics, and politics – with great passion and enthusiasm, ensuring that we’ll never think about it in the same way again. He tells the stories

E. B. White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._B._White and http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4155/the-art-of-the-essay-no-1-e-b-white ) conjures up clear and beautiful images in this collection of essays (1977). With detailed descriptions of sights, sounds, and transitory moments he brings his experiences vividly to life. You will find yourself immersed in technicolour New England, New York, or Florida. His crystalline depictions of all the moods and colours of

The war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations, and so on. Contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry and http://www.wendellberrybooks.com/), one of the America’s foremost cultural critics, addresses the menace, responding with hope and intelligence in a series of essays that tackle