My Book Reviews

War and its Consequences The twentieth century was arguably the most violent century in human history, certainly in terms of the number of people killed.  Those numbers vary, of course, according to the source cited.  A cursory search on Google yields the following figures: 203 million ( M. Cherif Bassouni), 167 - 175 million ( Zbigniew Brzezinski), and 203 million (Matthew White:  Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century , 2010) ).  See  Necrometrics  for further estimates.  One way or another, the numbers are in the hundreds of millions. An interesting question to ask ourselves here is the age-old one: What have we learned from our mutual destruction?  The purpose of historical inquiry, according to most historians, is not simply to present facts but to search for an interpretation of the past. They are attempting to find patterns and establish meaning through the rigorous study of documents and artifacts left by people of other ti...

A Brief Jungian Interlude This week, I wish to discuss two books about that psychic reality Jung called succinctly and aptly "the Shadow."  Jung stressed that   "[E]veryone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."    The S hadow  or " shadow aspect " of our psyche may refer to (1) the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious, or (2) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not recognize in itself. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the shadow is largely negative.   However, it has positive aspects, which are recognized once the Shadow has been accepted and integrated into the psyche.  In this brief review I wish to discuss two books I have read on Jung's concept of "the Shadow." 1. Romancing The Shadow Romancing...

I wish to discuss very briefly two books which I purchased recently: (i) James Harpur's A Complete Guide To The Soul: Who am I? What is my life's purpose?  Where am I going when I die? London: Rider, 2010 and (ii) T he Human Voyage of Self-Discovery: Essays in honour of Brendan Purcell , Dublin: Veritas, 2013. (i)  A Complete Guide To The Soul My copies of the two books reviewed here Anything from the pen of Patrick Harpur is well worth reading for its breadth of scholarship. I realise the title sounds very New Age-like, but Harpur is too astute and learned to let his heart run away with his reason; rather he balances both wonderfully.  When I buy any book on spirituality, philosophy or psychology I read about the author first to see his/her academic or professional background and (ii) check his/her endnotes and references. A perusal of Harpur's bibliography includes on the one hand, literary and philosophy figures from ancient and modern times, e.g., Homer, P...

I wish to talk about two philosophy books here, both of which I read several times in the past few months because they bear re-reading as (i) they are pretty accessible and (ii) rivetingly interesting. They are both introductory volumes to the subject.  As long as I have been studying philosophy - now some 35 years - I have never passed over the opportunity of reading good introductions to the subject as they all give a different slant and that small bit of extra information. (i) Philosophy: 100 Essential Thinkers My copies of the two books reviewed here This first book is written by Philip Stokes, and is published by Arcturus Publishing Ltd., 2012. The Amazon website informs me that  Stokes is married with two children and is currently living in Thailand, and further that he teaches English language and Critical Thinking skills at a university there. His latest work, apparently, is an open source critical thinking textbook written for lecturers and students of p...

Here, I would like to talk about two contrasting books (i) a history book and (ii) an OUP Book for Master's level Social Science courses.  They both treat the question of identity from vastly different perspectives.  The first is essentially about how a nation's identity is formed, while the latter deals with the formation of the individual's identity within society. (i) The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making it up in Ireland  Roy Foster is considered one of the foremost "revisionist"  Irish historians.   As well as early biographies of Charles Stewart Parnell  and Lord Randolph Churchil l , he is the author of many books on Irish history  and is currently the Carroll Builders Professor of Irish History at Hertford College, Oxford.     More recently, Foster has produced a much acclaimed two-part biography of W.B. Yeats  which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.  However, I was interested in this litt...

1. A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton , Yale University Press, 2012 This book is a delightful, interesting, rewarding and entertaining read.  As its title suggests, it is a light read that brings the reader right into the heart of the main points of the history of Western Philosophy.  It is also an enlightening and informative read as Warburton possesses a lightness of touch that belies or disguises a marvellous depth of knowledge.  The wonder of this book is that it is at once both entertaining and informative.  This is Warburton's strength as an author, and he is a wonderful teacher and lecturer.  One note on the back cover of my edition puts it succinctly: "He has a special gift for defusing complexity."  Warburton gives us a potted history of philosophy in forty chapters, each of which deals with a major philosopher, occasionally two.  The titles of each chapter are succinct as they pose the central question or problem t...