A dense but often illuminating book that provides a hopeful look at what it means to be human.
Griffith (A Species in Denial, 2004, etc.) offers a treatise about the true nature of humanity and about overcoming anxieties about the world.
The author states at the outset that “this book liberates you…and all other humans from an underlying insecurity and resulting psychosis.” He goes on to explore a contradiction of human history: humanity has made incredible achievements, he says, while at the same time being “the most ferocious and malicious creatures to have ever lived on Earth!” He argues that living in such a state creates a rather bleak feeling for the average person and provides various examples of this feeling; for instance, he shows how J.D. Salinger’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield, goes through “Resignation.” Griffith’s overall question, though, is how anyone can manage to live in a world that’s so full of reflective despair: “How could we be good when all the evidence seems to unequivocally indicate that we are a deeply flawed, bad, even evil species?” Clearly, it’s not an easy question to answer, and the author succeeds in not treating the subject lightly. He includes a plethora of material for readers to absorb, including poetry, song lyrics, information on bonobos (“humans’ closest relatives”), and thoughts from thinkers from Plato to Søren Kierkegaard to E.O. Wilson. He also offers a crash course in various sociological trends, such as the environmental movement, which, he says, “removed all need to confront and think about the human state because all focus was diverted from self onto the environment.” The book does answer Griffith’s questions about the predicament of human existence, but getting to these answers is a time-consuming task. The author’s penchant for lengthy sentences can make absorbing the information difficult; in a discussion of symbols, for example, he says, “Another universally iconic symbol that can now be interpreted through the truthful lens that this explanation allows is the Statue of Liberty that stands so proudly in New York Harbor.” Allusions to Griffith’s own writings may also be speed bumps for those who haven’t read them. That said, the work as a whole provides an undeniably intriguing, well-organized investigation.
A dense but often illuminating book that provides a hopeful look at what it means to be human.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-74129-028-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: WTM Publishing & Communications Pty Ltd
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An anecdotal and enjoyable popularization of the history and science of meteorology and weather forecasting in North America. Laskin (A Common Life, 1994, etc.), an amateur weather buff, tells the ``history of man's experience of the climate'' in America from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians to today's sophisticated computer forecasting analysis. The US, he notes, is ``blessed and cursed with the most and greatest variety of extreme weather in the world,'' and he examines those variances, from New England snowstorms to the tornadoes of the Plains to the intense heat and aridity of the Southwest. His history begins with a look at the Anasazi Indians of Chaco Canyon and Native Americans' predictive and rain-making abilities. He continues on to the Norse sagas, which provide ``the first tantalizing glimpse of American weather through the eyes of Europeans,'' then on to the colonial period, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the incredible winter of 188081 on the Great Plains, and finally, the weather and meteorology of today and predictions for the future. Laskin is most interesting as he provides material on Benjamin Franklin, whose kite-flying experiment was ``an epochal event in the history of weather''; Thomas Jefferson, who was fascinated by meteorology and hoped to establish an organized group of observers; Joseph Henry, the first director of the Smithsonian Institution, whose projects in the 1840s would lead to the founding of a national weather network; and Cleveland Abbe, the first chief forecaster for the War Department Signal Service. It would become the Signal Corps in 1880 and would evolve into today's highly sophisticated and, says Laskin, highly accurate National Weather Service. A delight when the author deals with history and personalities, although his dismissive asides, such as calling global warming just another of the doomsayers' ``climatic anxieties,'' could use some shoring up. (41 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-46955-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
There was a time when science refused to believe that meteors actually fell from the sky; now, scientists soberly calculate the possibility that one of those falls could destroy a city—or the entire human race. Lewis (codirector for science of the NASA/Univ. of Arizona Space Engineering Research Center) attempts to place the threat of cosmic bombardment in down-to-earth perspective by systematically building up evidence. Most early accounts of meteorite falls were ignored by later scientists; even Meteor Crater in Arizona was long considered a volcanic cone, despite the absence of volcanic rock in the area. The Tunguska event—a meteor explosion over Siberia in 1908—was not properly investigated for nearly 20 years. Only with the exploration of space did the full truth become evident: Every planetary surface we have examined shows proof of massive bombardment from space, although erosion has obliterated many of the traces on Earth's surface. Not all traces, however—numerous craterlike features show the geological stigmata of high impacts, such as shocked quartz crystals and the tiny glass beads known as microtektites. A crater near Yucat†n is now believed to be the remnant of the impact that destroyed the dinosaurs. The dramatic impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter converted most of the remaining skeptics. Lewis draws parallels with nuclear explosions to explain the possible effect of large impacts on human populations; at the same time, he points out that even the largest nuclear device ever exploded (60 megatons) was far less damaging than what we might expect from the impact of a million- ton asteroid, of which there are tens of thousands in orbits that threaten Earth. In his final chapter, Lewis proposes a space- going capability to divert the most threatening asteroids and to exploit the mineral resources of the richest. An apocalyptic vision that should be taken with the utmost seriousness by anyone concerned with the long-range fate of the human race.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-201-48950-3
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1995
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