Questioning The Millennium
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
In this slender volume, Stephen Jay Gould addresses three questions about the millennium with his typical combination of erudition, warmth and whimsy: As a calendrical event, what is the concept of a millennium and how has its meaning shifted over time? How did the projection of Christ's 1,000-year reign become a secular measure? And when exactly will the millennium begin--January 1, 2000 or January 2, 2001? "Our urge to know is so great, but our common errors cut so deep. You just gotta love us," he states disarmingly in the preface. "And you gotta view misguided millennial passion as a primary example of our uniqueness and our absurdity--in other words, of our humanity." Gould's own curiosity about time and calendars was triggered by a 1950 issue of Life magazine, which cut the century in half with its evaluation of what had happened and its prediction of things to come, propelling his third-grade mind to the year 2000. In Questioning the Millennium, Gould promises to make no predictions (other than "an orgy of millennial books"); court no millennial epiphanies; and put forth no theories on the collective angst that typically accompanies a century's end. Instead, he answers the millennial questions which, for him, represent the intersection of undeniable reality (natural fact) and human interpretation. Gould's questions and learned answers, weaving many historical and scientific facts, are a loving inquiry into the human need for order in a vast and teeming universe.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
With a humorous Everyman approach, Gould juggles a mind-boggling array of various calendrical concepts as he explains why creating a reliable calendar was one of man's greatest struggles. Whether nailing down the precise date of the birth of Christ or airing his suspicion that God is a New York Yankees fan, Gould teaches rather than preaches.--Daneet Steffens "Entertainment Weekly "
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
We inhabit a world of infinite and wondrous variety, a source of potential joy, especially if we can recapture childhood's fresh delight for "splendor in the grass" and "glory in the flower." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
We inhabit a world of infinite and wondrous variety, a source of potential joy, especially if we can recapture childhood's fresh delight for "splendor in the grass" and "glory in the flower." Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A nice, readable, short info-bomb exploding at the heart of the plans of those that would exploit the calendar's winding over to three zeros to justify wasteful public spending, or illusory national well-being. Surveying the history and science of date-keeping Gould, in a never less than informative and entertaining way, shows that the millennium is nothing more than a convenient fiction, an accident of incrementing numbers based on falsehoods and inventions in the distant and not so distant past. It's a shame that the time has passed for this book to have a wider impact, but never mind there's bound to be another year 2000 along for some nation or religious group sometime. A readable survey of the facts behind a fiction.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is awesome for anyone with a sarcastic sense of humor, like myself. Gould pokes fun of people with narrow minds and rediculous ideas. I recommend this book to everyone.
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It might be interesting to read, if the author weren't so arrogant and self-centred... and if, as a scientist should, he knew a bit more about mathematics. The question of when the millennium ends is not one of opinion, it is what it is. There is no year zero. Zero is an instant, namely the origin of the time axis. Let's graduate this axis in years. The interval between zero and 1, is called year 1. The interval between zero and -1, is called year -1. I repeat: there is no year zero. If the instant zero is the birth of Christ, year 1 is year 1 AD, year-1 is year 1 BC. And, of course, the second millennium after Christ ends on December 31, 2000. That's all there is to it.
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