There have been many attempts to define the demarcation between humans and other animals. Tool use, spirituality, complex language, moral intuition, culture have all been offered. In Catching Fire, Richard Wrangham (a British primatologist working at Harvard, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wrangham) argues that cooking really put us on the path to becoming homo sapiens. Almost 2 million years […]
No-one who has relished reading A Dance to the Music of Time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dance_to_the_Music_of_Time) will want to miss this monumental biography of Anthony Powell. Hilary Spurling (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/17/hilary-spurling-biographer-pearl-buck) lets us in on a huge amount of interesting detail about the novelist. There is the Eton schoolboy and Oxford undergraduate, a Parisian prostitute, Nina Hamnett (the artist’s model painted by
Anthony Powell by Hilary Spurling Read More »
Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris here offer detailed research on the place of religion in modern societies across the world. They point to a seemingly confusing picture. First, during the last century people in industrial societies have grown more secular. Second, ‘The world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever
Sacred and Secular by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris Read More »
Insects have been on planet Earth for approximately 400 million years. That predates Homo Sapiens by over 399 million years (Homo Sapiens having evolved by about 200,000 years ago). It’s a reasonable guess that the creepy crawlies will be here long after human extinction. Should you become fascinated by insects, you’ll want a splendid reference
Encyclopedia of Insects by Vincent Resh Read More »
You may remember Dante’s words “Midway upon the journey of our life/I found myself within a forest dark,/For the straightforward pathway had been lost.” In Nicole Krauss’ (https://www.nicolekrauss.com/) fourth novel, two characters travel to Israel to confront the aridity of their lives. One is a powerful, 68-year-old Manhattan attorney and philanthropist named Jules Epstein. The
Like most animals, humans cling to life tenaciously. Even in care homes and hospices where the spirit is weakened, one more breakfast and one more dawn is generally preferred to oblivion. David Boyd Haycock (http://www.johnsonandalcock.co.uk/haycock-david-boyd/) here gives us a history of our battle against mortality. Four centuries ago in western Europe more people died
Is it just luck that some people find purpose and fulfilment while others do not? Jonathan Haidt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Haidt) compares philosophical, religious, and theoretical texts with recent scientific insights to find out. He draws on psychology’s ‘attachment theory’, sociological research, and recent developments in the neuroscience of emotion. Haidt uses this research to illuminate ancient and more
The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt Read More »
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo_Calvino) describes Venice in the guise of a succession of 55 exotic and remote cities. It is an elegy placed in the mouth of Venetian traveller Marco Polo as he converses with emperor Kublai Khan. Venice is disguised as the city of ‘Hypatia’, where you expect to find beauty but instead
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The tercentenary celebrations of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688–91 prompted much new research on the subject. In 1988 and 1989 there were conferences, symposia, and exhibitions in Britain, the Netherlands and the United States. This is the first large-scale publication to emerge from the commemoration, and the first to attempt to bring together the main
The Anglo-Dutch Moment Read More »
