An extensive, encyclopedic investigation that walks a fine line between New Age spirituality and metaphysics.
Is it possible some of our central beliefs about time, space, and ourselves are wrong and our lives might change drastically for the better if we revise them? Cross investigates.
This provocative and ambitious book seeks to synthesize ideas in philosophy, spirituality, ethics, and new and old models of science to lay the groundwork for a new understanding of the place of humankind in the universe as well as the worth and purpose of human life. It’s as gargantuan a task as it sounds. The book, in keeping with this colossal goal, is sweeping in scope, moving from a discussion of recent discoveries in theoretical physics to a detailed account of how these discoveries prompt us to reconsider, and ultimately reframe, some of our most common convictions and beliefs. The project, then, is a revisionary one, encouraging readers to call into question the belief, for instance, that our view of the world is objective or exhaustive: “The reader must keep in mind that the multi-dimensional nature of the universe will always mean that it cannot be fully or accurately described using our three-dimensional concepts and language.” Cross gives intriguing descriptions of theories of the multiverse that have captured the minds of philosophers, physicists, and religious leaders for much of recent history. The goal of the project, however, is to show that understanding the connected nature of reality can help us transcend the egotistical concerns that have come to dominate our lives. In one particularly provocative chapter, the author argues that even a figure like Hitler should be understood as a necessary stage in the unfolding of a beautiful, perfect universe. In friendly, well-paced prose, the account flows and is broadly fascinating. In some cases, he puts forward claims that seem plainly at odds with common sense, and the justifications for discarding such common sense seem, at best, weakly speculative. That said, the book succeeds as an exploratory exercise in attempting to understand the practical consequences of taking up alternative stances toward the universe and our place in it.
An extensive, encyclopedic investigation that walks a fine line between New Age spirituality and metaphysics.Pub Date: Dec. 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988834446
Page Count: 376
Publisher: One River Press
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
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