A magisterial but reductionist work, paradoxically presented as a defense of science and enlightenment humanism.
Psychologist Kriegman presents a case for an evolutionary basis for tribalistic aggression and religious belief.
According to the author, it seems impossible to make sense of the “monstrous history of organized human violence” that reaches its grim zenith in genocidal action. However, he aims to do precisely that in these pages, relying on an evolutionary perspective that analyzes the development of human behavior due to adaptive pressures. Over time, he asserts, humans formed groups to survive and flourish, but tribal living demanded a volatile combination of social cohesion and conflict, making “coalitional aggression” necessary. Moreover, he says, humans used their superior cognitive abilities and verbal skills to “enhance their tribal cohesion” with religious ideologies, moral belief systems, and extraordinary loyalty requirements; these, in turn, provided them with rationales for marching to certain death in war. Kriegman’s account distinguishes itself from the crowded field of evolutionary biology by refusing to reduce religious impulses to a particular gene, and by acknowledging that organized religion has persisted because it contributes not only to survival, but to a search for meaning. However, he avers that religion was an adaptation to facilitate conflict, making it a principal barrier to the “elimination of divisive, antagonistic group identities and the false beliefs that facilitate warfare.” The best aspect of Kriegman’s monumental effort is its expansive survey of relevant literature; he provides a fine synopsis of the debates among evolutionary biologists and psychologists regarding war and religious belief. However, this strident, dogmatic study tends to caricature religion, as when it states that faith “shuts off the distressing ruminations” of life—a peculiar and unsubstantiated interpretation. He also offers the unsupported assertion that the foundational texts of the Abrahamic religions “contain calls for murderous violence against unbelievers.” Throughout, the book often takes for granted that religious belief is false and absurd, and that “in the most successful religious systems, belief withoutevidence is honored.”
A magisterial but reductionist work, paradoxically presented as a defense of science and enlightenment humanism.Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2023
ISBN: 9798989740505
Page Count: 767
Publisher: Natural Selections
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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