A complex but clearly written account of abstract scientific theory recommended for readers interested in new realms of...
In his absorbing, informative collection of essays, Tolkowsky (Homage to Stretcher Bearer, 2009) examines the connection between technology and metaphysics, focusing specifically on the history of flight.
From its beginnings, mankind has been fascinated with the idea of flying and the divine mystery of outer space. In the preface to this book, Tolkowsky speculates that “the problems that engineers apply their minds to and the solutions they find…are strongly influenced by abstract ideas.” He centers his essays on flight technology and metaphysics, based on the idea that man’s ability to fly “served as a starting line for an unfathomable wave of technological innovation and merging of technology with society in its broadest sense.” In Chapter 1, he examines how Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution affected the scientific and spiritual communities of the 19th century. He specifically details Russian scientist Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky’s theory of “Homo cosmiscus,” or the next stage of human evolution, in which man would biologically adapt to life in outer space. This concept of “space colonization” is continued in Chapter 2, comparing and contrasting how people in Russia and the United States have approached spiritual and engineering aspects of space exploration. In the third chapter, the author dissects the religious motivations behind mankind’s interest in space, specifically examining the tenets of pagan sun worship and its strong significance in modern religion and technology. The final chapter explains the early struggles of engineers, scientists and theorists seeking to build a flying machine. With the author’s previous experience as a combat pilot and aeronautical engineer, he clearly shows reverence and devotion to the subject matter. The book’s thesis is unusual yet intriguing, strongly supported with historical facts and developed smoothly from chapter to chapter. The prose is remarkably explanative, if sometimes repetitious, and never weighed down by excessive scientific terminology. Although some of the ideas may be difficult to fathom, the book is often engrossing; readers should be able to understand it without any previous knowledge of metaphysics or technology.
A complex but clearly written account of abstract scientific theory recommended for readers interested in new realms of thought.Pub Date: July 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-1629010021
Page Count: 118
Publisher: Inkwater Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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