Intriguing glimpses of how ritual provides the foundation stones of social structure and cultural evolution.
A comprehensive examination of rituals, from the primitive to the complex, and how they embody social meaning and purpose.
In his first book for a popular audience, Xygalatas, who runs the Experimental Anthropology Lab at the University of Connecticut, digs into an understudied field. Researchers have often dismissed the concept of ritual as an oddity existing at the fringes of culture even while acknowledging that every society has its ceremonial practices. Despite his initial skepticism, the author observed a huge number of rituals, supplementing his findings with lab studies, and interviewed numerous participants, many of whom “swear on the importance of their rituals, although they are not always sure why they are so important.” Humans have been doing this for millennia. In fact, Göbekli Tepe, one of the oldest and largest archaeological sites in the world, built more than 12,000 years ago, was apparently designed with a variety of ceremonies in mind. Xygalatas examines religious ceremonies as demonstrations of faith and sacrifice, as well as military rituals, which have the purpose of building solidarity and skills. Other rituals connect to mate selection and fertility. The legal profession has plenty of odd ceremonies of its own, with robes, titles, and Latin incantations, and athletes will often carry lucky charms or perform personal rituals before a big game. Yes, Xygalatas concludes, rituals are essentially pointless in that they do not have any impact on the physical world. However, there are undeniable effects for those who participate, and they are usually beneficial in providing social cohesion and individual purpose. “Ceremony is a primordial part of human nature, one that helps us connect, find meaning and discover who we are,” writes Xygalatas. “It is only when we embrace our obsession with ritual that we will be able to harness its full potential in our lives.”
Intriguing glimpses of how ritual provides the foundation stones of social structure and cultural evolution.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-46240-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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