| ||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.60
Trade in Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.60, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Review
'The closest thing we have to a window-smashing French intellectual' - Andrew Marr 'The most important living philosopher' - Will Self
Product Description
Why is the human imagination to blame for the worst crimes of the twentieth century?
Why is progress a pernicious myth?
Why is contemporary atheism just a hangover from Christian faith?
John Gray, author of Straw Dogs and Black Mass, is one of the most original and iconoclastic thinkers of our time. In this pugnacious and brilliantly readable collection of essays from across his career, he smashes through humanity’s most cherished beliefs to overturn our view of the world, and our place in it.
‘If humans are different from other animals it is chiefly in being governed by myths, which are not creations of the will but creatures of the imagination.’
‘No traditional myth is as untruthful as the modern myth of progress. All prevailing philosophies embody the fiction that human life can be altered at will. Better aim for the impossible, they say, than submit to fate. Invariably, the result is a cult of human self-assertion that soon ends in farce.’
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"a book to learn from and to argue with",
By Derek Tunnicliffe (Bords, France) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (Paperback)
My title is a quote from a cover review: and it sums it up. At times I was nodding in agreement, other times I was furiously irritated, and again sometimes left shaking my head wondering just what his deep, philosophical discussions were about. I like to have my prejudices exposed and challenged. John Gray is happy to parade his prejudices and to argue for them. It makes for a good book.
This selection of essays are drawn from his writings from 1983 to 2008, and cover a wide range of topics. It's possible to see how his thoughts and arguments have changed over time; and how the increasing diversity of his work has translated into his work. So, here are some of his thoughts on morality, politics, religion, art, Green issues - and more. Well recommended.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative as ever,
By
This review is from: Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (Paperback)
This selection of Gray's work is an excellent window in the thinking that has engaged and enraged many people. Sceptical of progress and humanism, Gray makes those who could not be more certain in the truth stop and think again. The perfect book for those who wish to get to familiar with his work.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Gray's Anatomy - selected writings,
This review is from: Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (Hardcover)
The book's title - "selected writings" - is appropriate, because the various essays span decades of Gray's academic career; and it is important to note that many of the passages are in a very tedious academic style. Quite frankly, Gray is dilatory when it comes to making a point.Gray's worst misdemeanour - in my view - is using excessively long sentences with protracted interjections. Reading Gray is rather like learning German; everything is a mystery until the last word of the sentence, by which time one has forgotten what the sentence was originally about. His second misdemeanour is the use of such uncommon words that the reader must be armed with a good dictionary; which is a shame because plain language would have equally served the purpose in most cases. Having put all that, Gray's book contains some very fine observations on contemporary politics if one can decypher them, and provided a person can put up with the academic style, it is well worth reading.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
