An invigorating perspective on how science and spirituality inform the history of human experience.
An evolutionary cosmologist analyzes the profound entanglements between the history of the universe and our understanding of that history.
Blending autobiography and science writing, Swimme, a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies and co-creator and host of the PBS series Journey of the Universe, explores the concept of cosmogenesis, which describes the origin and evolution of the universe from primordial soup to human intelligence. The author’s breakthrough came when he realized that “I was evolving, that I was as much a development of the universe as were stars and galaxies. If I wanted to tell the story of the expanding universe and how it developed through time, I needed to include the story of my long struggle out of the structures of existence I had been born into.” Taking this idea further, he ponders a statement famously uttered by Freeman Dyson, repeated in conversation with the author: “The universe—in some sense—must have known we were coming….The universe knew.” Swimme likens this idea to a human embryo “knowing” how to create a human nervous system endowed with an intelligence capable of performing incredible feats. In writing that is clear and free from complex jargon, the author argues that this integrated cosmological self is an overlooked aspect in scientific communities and that a “radically new vision of the universe” is needed to account for the fact that “we ourselves are constructions of the universe’s process.” While the concepts he explores are fascinating, his reliance on the minute details of his life—what he calls “time-developmental experiences”—at times bogs down the trajectory of his argument even as he invites readers to participate in a mutual "transformation" as part of the "living universe.” Yet the overall message of the power of storytelling leaves readers with a new appreciation for how we view the universe's history and ourselves within it.
An invigorating perspective on how science and spirituality inform the history of human experience.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64009-398-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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