Anderson gives us the philosopher we need for the moment at hand, and it is a welcome gift.
A concise primer on how to live a meaningful life in our digital world.
It is one of Nietzsche’s unique attributes that books about him often carry the life force that animates his own works. This book is no exception. As the narrative opens, Anderson, deputy editor of Ars Technica and author of The Internet Police, writes about how he was stuck in an all-too-familiar digital rut. “Perhaps you have felt the same discomfort,” he writes, “looking up from yet another spam email to wonder: What has become of the wonder and danger of life?” Looking for such wonder and danger, Anderson turned to Nietzsche, who offers a rousing and viable alternative to our screen-obsessed lives. So many writers get Nietzsche wrong, but Anderson reads him accurately and thoroughly, and he helpfully points out elements of his life and work that have been misunderstood or reached the level of myth. However, instead of full-on Nietzscheanism, Anderson recommends “thinking with him,” which necessarily entails facing up to the philosopher’s many shortcomings, especially his misogyny, as well as celebrating his many virtues. “Take Nietzsche as your guru and you will run into all sorts of problems,” writes the author. “As one of my philosophy professors told me, ‘If you’re not offended by Nietzsche, you’re not paying attention.’…Nietzsche was a flawed human being and a creature of his time.” Thinking with also means going beyond. “If Nietzsche could see what many of us can’t, perhaps we can see something Nietzsche couldn’t”—that many of his goals “are often accomplished in community….[He] correctly diagnosed the need for joy in an industrializing world, where life and work felt commoditized and flattened.” Anderson’s vision is less heroic and iconoclastic than Nietzsche’s, but it’s more human and moderate and, therefore, more practical.
Anderson gives us the philosopher we need for the moment at hand, and it is a welcome gift.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-00479-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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