A Very Brief History of Eternity - Rilegato

Eire, Carlos

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0691133573 ISBN 13: 9780691133577

Casa editrice: Princeton Univ Pr, 2009

Riassunto

What is eternity? Is it anything other than a purely abstract concept, totally unrelated to our lives? A mere hope? A frightfully uncertain horizon? Or is it a certainty, shared by priest and scientist alike, and an essential element in all human relations?

In A Very Brief History of Eternity, Carlos Eire, the historian and National Book Award-winning author ofWaiting for Snow in Havana, has written a brilliant history of eternity in Western culture. Tracing the idea from ancient times to the present, Eire examines the rise and fall of five different conceptions of eternity, exploring how they developed and how they have helped shape individual and collective self-understanding.

A book about lived beliefs and their relationship to social and political realities,A Very Brief History of Eternity is also about unbelief, and the tangled and often rancorous relation between faith and reason. Its subject is the largest subject of all, one that has taxed minds great and small for centuries, and will forever be of human interest, intellectually, spiritually, and viscerally.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2010
"It's a fascinating story. . . . Happily, there is consolation in A Very Brief History of Eternity, hidden in plain sight. . . . As long as God's problems with living in eternity mirror what our own would be, maybe mortality isn't so bad after all."--Andrew Stark, Wall Street Journal

"Despite its heady topic, Eire's engaging style and sense of humor keep things light enough to carry readers through a history of 'how conceptions of forever, or eternity, have evolved in Western culture, and what role these conceptions have played in shaping our own self-understanding, personally and collectively.' Eire gives readers so much to think about and in such an entertaining manner that he can be excused for occasionally overreaching."--Publishers Weekly

"Carlos Eire's A Very Brief History of Eternity reminds us that our puzzlement over what comes after death has a history. The ways in which we ask about our relation to death and the hereafter do not take place in a vacuum. Instead, our wondering arises within particular historical contexts, where life and death are related in particular ways."--Todd May, Forbes

"A profound and unsettling inquiry."--Bryce Christensen, Booklist (starred review)
"Eire intimately addresses the weighty subject of eternity in this delightful volume. His skill at engaging readers conceals the rigorous, thoughtful research and methodology that went into this volume. . . . As it stands this thought-provoking book is sure to be a classic."--Choice

"A lively trot around the literature, referring to everything from the Reformation to ghosts to Karl Marx to tattooing, in the company of a skeptical believer. A tough topic tamed by a lively mind."--Miriam Cosic, Australian

"Eire is an avuncular companion. While his subject may be beyond comprehension, Eire himself is imminently accessible and genuinely concerned for the reader's edification. And his dashes of humor, witty and sharp, are a welcoming leavening to a sometimes heavy read. Yet this book is ideal for lovers of The Big Idea, people who enjoy an author's attempt at explaining something they always thought about but didn't know what questions to ask, and people who enjoy reading about the most basic things, like being and nothingness, here and eternity."--John Stoehr, New Haven Advocate

"You could say that Carlos Eire goes on and on about eternity--but most of the time he does so informatively and entertainingly. And without sacrificing the intellectual rigour the subject requires."--Steven Carroll, The Age

"[The book] contains many good things and is especially good on the symbiosis between understandings of eternity and the ways the dead and the living relate. It is written in a relaxed and lively style."--Paul J. Griffiths, First Things

Dalla seconda/terza di copertina:

"As learned as it is lively, Carlos Eire's A Very Brief History of Eternity traces the elusive history of a very big idea. Eire teaches us to understand our ways of thinking about the future--as well as the present and our past--with new clarity and insight."--Anthony Grafton, Princeton University

"A Very Brief History of Eternity is vintage Eire: erudite and witty, profound and written with a light touch. Eire compellingly narrates the ways in which complex beliefs about eternity are intertwined with the way life is lived in time. It is an invitation to reflect on how eternity, even when it is absent from view, can make, as he puts it, 'a hell of a difference.'"--Miroslav Volf, Yale University Divinity School

"Carlos Eire doesn't disappoint. The breadth of detail, the depth of imagination, the ability to synthesize and to identify the telling example--and all for such an impossibly expansive topic as eternity--are astonishing. We get glimpses throughout of the creativity that graced his memoir of Cuba, and evidence everywhere of his massive learning."--Craig Harline, author ofSunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Super Bowl

"Carlos Eire's A Very Brief History of Eternity is precisely what you would expect from a formidable historian who is also an acclaimed memoirist. Strikingly erudite and profound yet accessible, this book will appeal to anyone who takes pleasure in being enlightened and entertained at the same time."--Peter Iver Kaufman, University of Richmond

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Princeton Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0691133573
• ISBN 13: 9780691133577
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 268