Family Of Man, The

Book Description

Hailed as the most successful exhibition of photography ever assembled, The Family of Man opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in January 1955. This book, the permanent embodiment of Edward Steichen's monumental exhibition, reproduces all of the 503 images that Steichen described as "a mirror of the essential oneness of mankind throughout the world. Photographs made in all parts of the world, of the gamut of life from birth to death." A classic and inspiring work, The Family of Man has been in print for more than forty years. The New York Times once wrote that it "symbolizes the universality of human emotions." First produced by a magazine publisher and sold by the hundreds of thousands on newsstands and in airport shops, The Family of Man has been in more recent years published by the Museum. It has been continuously in print since 1955; the present Thirtieth Anniversary Edition was prepared from original photographs with all new duotone plates in 1986.

Customer Reviews:

Timeless Insight Into The Universal Quality Of All People.......2007-09-08

This is my favorite book. I purchased it when I was 18, and loved black and white photography. I am now 65, and still see the same basic beauty in the photographs. It's not about the 1950's, or showing American culture. It shows how universal and similiar all people of all races and cultures are. It shows young children playing, people falling in love, weddings, births, hard work, wars, death, grieving, and even hope from various people and countries from our planet Earth. One family. One people. This is a collection of love, not about a specific time, or place, or our differences. This is a book that shows our skin colors, clothes, and countries may change; but we are all the same.

Perhaps the best photographic book ever published.......2007-05-12

I first found this book at Foyle's in London, about 35 years ago, and it struck me. Since then, I bought five copies of the Family of Man, but no one remained in my home, because ever I felt the need to give this book to someone I loved or trusted.
What is making this book so precious to me?
First the idea itself of collecting pictures from the whole world (remember, when Steichen launched his project, the Cold War and the related hysteria was at its peak). This to demonstrate that all the human beings have to pass through the same events in their life: birth, growth, education, emotions, work, love, children, reflection, death. This apparently trivial concept leads to a conclusion by far less trivial: we all do belong to one family, our species, the humans (by the way, this thinking had not so great success in the past, nor the present seems to be more benevolent).
The Family of Man is exactly the visual demonstration of such a concept, by comparing the same events as viewed from different geographic and cultural perspectives, by means of photos from renowned or unknown photographers (of course, the pictures from the US are prevailing in numbers for logistics and statistical reasons: it was by far more simple for an US photographer to even simply receive the news of the Steichen project than for a photographer in Rwanda or in the USSR).
Steichen and his assistants made an impressive selection, shortlisting 503 pictures from the over 2 million they received. By the way, Steichen was a photographer, and his selection also considered the aesthetic side of the question: most of the pictures selected simply are wonderful.
The result is this book. I think no one on this planet can miss it, because The Family of Man is representative of a large part of our culture and on our very nature.
To give an example, in my opinion this book is at the same emotional and rational level as Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, Melville's Moby Dick, primo Levi's If this is a Man, or the ancient Greek lyrics, to quote some comparisons.
I hope it will continue to be published; we, the humans, desperately need it.

i love this book........2007-04-10

I am so glad Family of Man is still available. I would also suggest that in conjunction with this book, you offer Family of Women, and Family of Children.

This book is a magic book--absolutely essential. (NOT recent editions, though)........2005-11-24

I've always thought of THE FAMILY OF MAN as a magic book, ever since discovering it on the family bookshelves when I was a young child. The thing was (above and beyond the book's excellence and power to move anyone with a heart), for many years it seemed that every time I would delve into this book, there would be at least one new picture, one I could swear I'd never seen before. I still sometimes have that experience (although nowadays I tend to attribute it to an aging mind). I do remember at first being most impressed and guiltily fascinated by the powerful pictures of birth, which my siblings, our friends and I would look at, giggling in horrified wonder, and by those "nasty" (actually, beautiful) pictures of breastfeeding. I still remember our mom explaining that there was nothing "nasty" about any of those pictures, that they were true and lovely. That was only one of many life lessons she taught us, using images from this book.

Each image is a whole story, a world, unto itself, and the beauty is the connection of each one to all the others, just as we are all connected to each other in the family of man (as well as to all that the world comprises, like it or not). As others have written, I have given numerous copies of this book as gifts over the years. (That was not so successful when I gave it to my brother and sister-in-law as part of their wedding present. My brother had grown up with it, but his bride had never seen it before, and was somewhat horrified and disgusted by it; unfathomable to me. I don't think it lasted long in their home, if it ever made it there at all.)

Sometime in the mid-'90s I bought a new copy in a bookstore, and was upset and very disappointed to discover how it had been changed and messed up in that edition (which was, I believe, put out under the aegis of Disney's Buena Vista Entertainment). The look and feel of the paper were wrong, to begin with: too bright white and thick. Pictures had been cropped differently and (I think I'm remembering correctly on this), in some cases, laid out somewhat differently. I recommend avoiding such copies (I don't know what is being published now in that regard, or if the book is out of print, or if they've gone back to the original look and feel); the differences, though subtle, really are jarring and very much diminish the quality. This 'brightened' version came in the wake of a spate of "Family of..." books (Women, Children, and I think maybe a couple of others), that always seemed opportunistic, a little crass, and pitiful in their inability to approach the fundamental, universal, inevitable feeling of the original. Not that these others were without merit, but almost always, an original will far overshadow any sequels or copies that come after it. That's certainly the case here.

A Timeless Classic.......2005-09-11

I first purchased this book over 30 years ago as a budding photographer. It inspired and uplifted me then and does today. As I finished my term as president of a state professional photographers organization, this was the gift I selected to give to the members of my Board of Directors.
Eric Newhall

Average customer rating:

Some Famous Faces
great delivery and service
Great Artistist Legacy
Extremely Well Reproduced Images and Personal Insights
For Photography Lovers & Memoir Readers Everywhere!

Steichen's Legacy
Joanna Steichen
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Photo Essays | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Portraits | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Arts & Photography | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0679450769
Release Date: 2000-09-26

Amazon.com

Edward Steichen was a visionary determined to show that photography was an art form as well as a craft, which explains the painterly style characterizing his early images. His portraits resonate with echoes of Whistler and Sargent; like Whistler, he used terms such as pastorale and nocturne as titles for his landscapes to suggest their affinity with music. His experiments with color images of flowers, dating as early as 1907, look back to the paintings of Fantin-Latour yet anticipate Robert Mapplethorpe. He explored photography's potential to immortalize the chance play of shadows on flat surfaces and the unexpected beauty of decayed plants. Beyond his artistic eye, Steichen's sensitivity and daring were evident in the international photographic exhibition The Family of Man that he organized for the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. The text of Steichen's Legacy is written by the photographer's widow, Joanna, who met Steichen when he was 80 and she was 28. Though her intensely personal recollections are a unique window on Steichen's life and an excellent source of anecdote, they form an uneasy mix of art history and biography--the loving memories of one so intimate with Steichen do not form the most solid base for analyzing his work. Her choice of images, however, and the book's rich visual presentation make it a magnificent tribute to one of photography's great interpreters and innovators. His legacy is well served by the 300 high-quality duotones, tritones, and full-color images that illustrate this substantial volume, printed in Italy on fine art paper and a tour de force of book production. --John Stevenson

Book Description

A magnificent book--315 photographs by Edward Steichen, the man Auguste Rodin called "the greatest photographer of his time."

        This is the first gathering in thirty years of Steichen's photographs, spanning seven decades: the landscapes, the haunting studies of flowers, the portraits of friends and family, the still lifes and cityscapes. Here are fashion photographs taken during the fifteen years Steichen worked for Vogue. And here too are the breathtaking portraits he made for Vanity Fair: Colette, Noel Coward, Greta Garbo, Willa Cather, Isadora Duncan . . . William Butler Yeats, Henri Matisse, Thomas Mann . . . George Gershwin, Amelia Earhart, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (taken when he was governor of New York--a standard pose, the decisive leader in his chair--but later, when FDR was president, cropped by Steichen to show the sad, serious face of a visionary acquainted with suffering).

        In a personal and illuminating text, Joanna Steichen writes about her husband's passionate views on photography; about how he moved away from painting (his understanding and support of modernism helped bring the movement to this country); about his experiments with abstraction; about the repercussions of commercial success in his life as an artist; about how he and Joanna first met (through the mischievous intervention of Steichen's brother-in-law, Carl Sandburg) and how their relationship changed as they became lovers, man and wife and, finally, artist and assistant.

        Joanna Steichen writes about Steichen's days as a colonel in World War I, in charge of aerial photography for the Air Force in France, and then as a captain in the Navy--past the age of retirement--in World War II, in charge of combat photography in the Pacific. She writes about his years as the European art scout for his friend Alfred Stieglitz, and of how Steichen later designed the gallery for the Photo-Secession's 291 and arranged exhibitions of the work of Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso and Brancusi, long before these names were known in America. And she writes about the couple's farm in Connecticut, which Steichen landscaped out of woods and rocks and hollows and photographed over the years, as well as the new hybrid of delphinium Steichen produced and the sunflowers he raised and studied through his lens.

Carl Sandburg said: "A scientist and a speculative philosopher stands back of Steichen's best pictures. They will not yield their meaning and essence on the first look nor the thousandth--which is the test of masterpieces."

Steichen's Legacy is a book of masterpieces.

Customer Reviews:

Some Famous Faces.......2006-07-03

I originally ordered this book because my husband is distantly related to the photographer and found it to be a beautiful collection of Edward Steichen's work. His subjects run from flowers to sculptors and include several presidents and movie stars. Anyone interested in photography would enjoy this book.

great delivery and service .......2006-03-14

... wonderful condition. A pleasure to deal with.

Great Artistist Legacy.......2006-01-22

Why would a 26-year-old marry an 81-year-old? I don't know, but I am glad for the insight Joanna Steichen provided to Edward Steichen's personality and what his work was about. Her writing style is insightful, poetic, and surprisingly candid about Steichen, both his good side (his work) and his bad side (his person). She did a good job of interpreting what he was trying to do, how he was trying to do it, and the `language' he was using in his props, lighting, angles, and so forth. There was almost a subliminal language going on in some of the photographs that she clues us in on. Also, it was special seeing people like Gary Cooper, Charlie Chaplin, and Franklin Roosevelt when they were in their prime. It was also a treat seeing the great sculptor August Rodin, composer Sergio Rachmaninoff, and Conductor Leopold Stokowski since I'm a fan of all three.

Although I am more into art than photography I find that Steichen was a 20th century giant of a photographer, and an artist, as such, his own right. He is well-known for his portraits of famous people, his wartime work in both of the World Wars, his contributions to the Family of Man exhibits, his creative cityscapes of New York, and his innovative advertising work. He was very big for most of the 20th century and even did some good work in the 1890's. Some of his work you have probably seen before, and you'll notice this as you go through his book.

Enormously gifted and innovative, he seemed to care little about anything but his work. He considered himself the surrogate son of August Rodin, the scupture of The Thinker, who was an impossible man who did improbably great work. Too much of Rodin seemed to rub off on him, but the greatness of Steichen's work can't be denied. It's important to separate the artist from his art. I did, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Extremely Well Reproduced Images and Personal Insights.......2000-11-30

This book belongs in the home of everyone who loves great photography.

" . . . [S]eeing led to understanding and understanding could transform suspicion, hatred and violence into tolerance, peace and love." This was Steichen's vision for his oeuvre, as reported by his widow, Joanna, in this rewarding retrospective and series of biographical essays. In keeping with that vision, Ms. Steichen has developed this wonderful volume in the following way: "I want the reader to have optimal opportunity to experience the images simply as images." In that, she was remarkably successful. She graciously acknowledges the aid of George Tice, the last of those who printed for Steichen, in preparing the volume.

Each page is gorgeously reproduced in superb size, on great paper, and with thoughtful care concerning the sharpness, lack of sharpness, or contrast required to express Steichen's intent for each image.

Before going further, let me mention that Steichen's work does include female nudity. There are few of these images, and only one is potentially challenging for the viewer. If such things bother you, skip that section of the book called "the Body" or skip this volume.

If you are not familiar with Steichen's personal life, you should know that he and his wife first met when he was 80 and she was 28, when Carl Sandburg, Steichen's brother-in-law, introduced them. They soon fell in love and married. Steichen then drafted her to be his personal assistant, and she became very familiar with his work and collaborators. When he died, he left his negatives to her for use and disposition, and directed that she also decide who was to get his prints. From seeing the care in selecting images and the quality of their reproduction in this volume, he chose well in leaving his artistic legacy to her.

The intent of her selection process was to provide an overview of his life's work, so you get a combination of the famous and the seldom-seen here. These are grouped around themes as follows: Next of Kin (his family); of Woods and Water (landscapes), Reverie (foggy romantic images); Powerful People; Challenging Women; Style; the Body; Artists; Early Color Process; Writers; on the Road; Masters of Music; New York City; Glamour; Scale and Symbol; Improvisation; Forces of Nature; On Stage; and Flowers.

The essays about these sections contain personal anecdotes that are more revealing about his life than his work. But for those who do not know his technique, there is an overview to explain his interests and methods. For example, the connections to painting, abstraction, and setting a mood are well established. The many luminescent images against a dark background, shaded by fuzziness, are explained by his experience with mist on the lens later aided by deliberate use of saliva and indirect lighting.

My favorites of the images here include:

With Studio Camera (self-portrait), 1917

With Photographic Paraphernalia (self-portrait), 1929

Theodore Roosevelt, The White House, 1908

Walter Winchell, New York, 1929

The Cat -- Gloria Swanson, 1924

Mary Steichen, 1917

Shoes, 1927

Douglass Lighters, 1928

Thumbtacks, 1926-1927

Nude Torso, c. 1934

Dana's Hands and Grasses, Long Island, New York, 1923

The First Cast of Brancusi's "Bird in Space", c. 1925

Carl Sandburg, Umpawaug Farm, 1939

Irving Berlin, 1932

George Gershin, 1927

Martha Graham (4), New York, 1931

Noel Coward, New York, 1932

Leslie Howard, 1933

Joan Crawford, 1932

Spiral Shell, France, c. 1921

Ed Wynn, New York, 1930

Katherine Hepburn, 1933

Having seen all of these images, I came away most impressed with those rare occasions when personal character, abstraction, and shadows could be combined into the same image. The results are simply breathtaking.

Steichen has significance in three ways for the modern viewer. He pioneered in making photography an "art" rather than pure representation. These pioneering efforts established many of the major methods used by photographers since. Second, he was an important curator of photography, and he championed many careers. Third, he was remarkably talented in capturing personality, much like the great portrait painters.

The essays add a fourth dimension to Steichen that is well worth our attention. What is it like to be an acknowledged genius in your field? What are the challenges? What are the pitfalls?

"He was full of contradictions." "Meeting the daily needs of individuals was not his concern." "His capacity for connecting truly and intensely operated on a grander scale." In this way, Steichen reminds one of many great people who withdraw into their work. Compared to Einstein, his withdrawal was not nearly as complete. Compared to Picasso, he did not actually torment his family deliberately. But, it is clear that his career came before all else.

"Steichen had a conscience and room for compasssion, but he also had an urgent, lifelong mandate for accomplishment." He comes across as the archetype of the modern self-absorbed striver, and his example bears witnessing. After a rough session in which the author suffered tough treatment from her husband, friends often took her aside to reassure her that everyone eventually found their lives enriched by knowing Steichen. Ms. Steichen echoes that advice in this volume also. So ultimately, the picture you get is of someone where the heart ultimately overcame the obsession with work and self-expression, but not without creating pain for others along the way.

After you finish enjoying this delightful group of great images, I suggest that you think about your own life. Where may you have an obsession that causes pain to those around you? How can you change that approach to create more joy and happiness instead, for others and for yourself? If you are not sure, perhaps the outstanding book, Relationship Rescue, and The Relationship Rescue Workbook can help you.

Accomplish with all your heart!

For Photography Lovers & Memoir Readers Everywhere!.......2000-11-13

This beautifully printed book is obviously a labor of love on all sides. With text by the widow of Edward Steichen, the book is unique in that it weaves together the extraordinary photographs of this great American master with an intriguing story which is more memoir than dull academic treatise. While Edward Steichen's beautifully reproduced photographs provide a feast for the eyes, Joanna Steichen tells his story and looks at their life together honestly, bringing to her text the heart and soul of a true writer. She discusses the groupings of photographs from her own experiences as the young wife of a much older, great man, and she shares her memories of their sometimes difficult marriage. Even more extraordinary is that all of this is so accessible to a general audience, which is generally not the case with most art books. What this reviewer finds particularly interesting is the way the book is laid out -- in chapters with titles like "Of Woods and Water," "Forces of Nature," and "Challenging Women," instead of by dull academic chronology or by technical photographic process. In sum, this is really two books -- an art book and a memoir -- in one, and although this may confuse professional reviewers in the national press it should not dissuade readers. Put it on your holiday list if you want to give a very special gift to a very special person. For photographers, of course, the book is a "must buy." Edward Steichen was a true American original who lived a long and exciting life to the fullest, and was a pioneer in his field. "Steichen's Legacy" will interest almost everyone.

Average customer rating:

A life in photography
Edward Steichen
Manufacturer: DoubleDay
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00072I9GI

Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America

Average customer rating:

The book is just photography at its best.

Picturing an Exhibition: The Family of Man and 1950s America
Eric J. Sandeen
Manufacturer: Univ of New Mexico Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

History | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Photo Essays | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Portraits | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0826315585

Book Description

The Family of Man, a photography exhibit curated by Edward Steichen, opened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. More people saw that exhibit than any other show of photographs, and the book of the same title remains in print to this day. Despite the enormous success of this assemblage of photographs, surprisingly little critical attention has been paid to The Family of Man as a phenomenon.

Eric Sandeen presents here the first in-depth study of the exhibit and its influence worldwide. He examines how the exhibit came to be assembled, the beliefs and background Edward Steichen brought to the project, and what he wanted to show about the human condition from his selection of images. He then looks at the politics and culture of the 1950s to determine why the show was so popular at the time. When the United States Information Agency toured the photographs throughout the world in five different versions for seven years, The Family of Man became a symbol for and projection of American values and the culture of abundance.

The richness and historical complexity of this exhibit have been overlooked, especially in the post-Vietnam decades, as critics have been quick to dismiss it as sentimental. Sandeen shows the exhibit to be a great deal more than a compendium of beautiful but unchallenging photographs. He also unfolds its multilayered relationship with and reflection of the values of postwar America.

Customer Reviews:

The book is just photography at its best........1999-06-24

First printed in the 50's, "The Family of Man" is just loaded with images that we see until today, a history of photography. Hundreds of photographers from several countries sent their best images to this exposition. The result is this particular book.

The Family of Man: The 30th Anniversary Edition of the Classic Book of Photography

Average customer rating:

The Family of Man: The 30th Anniversary Edition of the Classic Book of Photography
Edward Steichen
Manufacturer: Museum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0671554123

Average customer rating:

Edward Steichen: The portraits
Christian A Peterson
Manufacturer: Art Museum Association of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0930295005

Average customer rating:

Edward Steichen : The Portraits
Christian A.; Steichen, Edward; Minneapolis Institute of Arts Peterson
Manufacturer: Art Museum Association of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NS86XM

Amazon.com

Move over, Faith Popcorn! Cartoonist Scott Adams is back in book form, and this time he gives Dilbert and his cronies a free hand to forecast the trends that just might drive business and society during the next millennium. In typical Adams fashion, The Dilbert Future: Thriving on Stupidity in the 21st Century serves up a series of laugh-out-loud predictions on technology, marketing, work, jobs, gender relations, and even the future of democracy and capitalism.

Book Description

With this book, Scott Adams follows in the footsteps of other great futurists, i.e., sitting at home making stuff up that can't be proven wrong for many years. Featuring the same mix of essays and cartoons that made The Dilbert Principle so uniquely entertaining, The Dilbert Future offers predictions on business, technology, society, and government. Some predictions include: children are our future, so grab what you can while they're still too little to stop us; and humans will finally learn to use the 90 percent of the brain we don't use today, and find out that there wasn't anything in that part.

Customer Reviews:

It's ok, but does not hold the audience like the Dilbert series.......2007-06-03

I'm even being generous by giving this 2 stars. Scott Adams is very talented but he should just stick to Dilbert Comics.

Stick with Dilbert Collections.......2006-07-06

Scott Adams is a cartoonist. He is not a stand-up comedian nor is he Dave Barry, though this book makes it quite clear that he really wants to be. Still, there is a reason he tells jokes in three-panel comic strips instead of 30-minute monologues. Here he addresses various aspects of life and makes tongue-in-cheek predictions, interspersed with Dilbert cartoons. It was obviously written in sections rather than as a whole, and the entire time all I could think about was how much more fitting these musings would be in somebody's blog than a hardbound tome published by Harper Business, especially since so many of the predictions have gone out of date since its publication (such as his erroneous predictions for the futures of the cable modem and ISDN). There were some vaguely amusing parts but nothing was anywhere near laugh-out-loud funny, and I had to yawn a bit at the tired "women really rule the world" section - that idea was beaten to death decades ago and hasn't gotten any funnier in the meantime. Frankly, the most humorous parts were the cartoons, and if I wanted to read those I could have just picked up a collection.

The final chapter, "A New View of the Future," was inappropriate in this context. For this section Adams "turned the humor mode off" and discussed his personal philosophies. They were interesting but did not fit whatsoever with the rest of the book. His ideas on perception and cause and effect would also have been much more compelling had he bothered to actually research any of the theories and experiments he mentioned. I understand that the goal of this section was nothing more than to make the reader think about the universe a little differently, but it would have been much more effective had he spent an hour at the library finding a couple of references to cite. Saying things like "I'll simplify the explanation, probably getting the details wrong in the process, but you'll get the general idea" does not instill in me a desire to take him very seriously.

Despite the incongruity of the chapter, I still enjoyed it about as much as I did the rest of the book, but for different reasons (the first part was vaguely amusing, the second vaguely intriguing). Ultimately this felt like a Dilbert collection trying to be a Dave Barry book. I think I'll stick with the comic strips from now on.

I've had this book for a while..........2006-01-23

I've had this book for a while, and I would like to say that for the most part, half of Scott's predictions became true. For instance, after a terrorist attack, we have sacrificed a bunch of civil liberties in exchange for saftey. In addition, with the advent of the internet, every other yahoo is posting the news, or providing news content for free. He predicted that as well. Buy this book just to read all the predictions that came true. PEACE!

The future is stupid.......2005-03-19

What else could it be? It will be full of people like the ones around you today.

It will be full of managers who pull everyone out of work to all-day meetings to determine why productivity is low. It will be full of financial planners who couldn't make their living with their own money, so ask for a percentage of yours (about which they care somewhat less). It will be full of people who decide to work for those bosses and hire those financial planners. You know, the people we have now. Only more of them.

Or we could murder them all. Then we'd live in a future full of murderers. Was that supposed to be an improvement?

If you're the cash crop in a cube farm, Dilbert is your biopic in daily installments. (Call it a "comic" around other people or they'll look at you funny.) Adams's warped sense of absolutely literal reality has no equal on the bookshelves today.

It can become tiresome in large doses, though, and the reader might wish for more of the pictures and less of the text, especially in the last chapter. That's sort of like a warm, fuzzy, spiritual kind of thing, but without the spiritualism, warmth, or fuzziness.

I had to round up to give four stars, but Adams is the spokesman for my generation. Wherever people spend more time looking at computer screens than at other people, you'll find Dilbert taped to the wall. Loyalty counts for something - except where you make your living.

-- wiredweird

Amusing, but with some serious food for thought.......2004-09-10

Hmmm...not exactly the future I was expecting. Clearly this book was written with tongue firmly planted in cheek, it has to be read with the same mindset. This probably would have been much more effective if Adams had focused on his strengths, namely the world of work. The sections dealing with the worlds of work and business are by far the most effective sections of this book. While the convoluted logic used in the other sections are amusing, it often feels like Adams is trying too hard to be funny.

In the final chapter ("A New View of the Future") Adams steps out of his role as a humorist and provides some serious food for thought. I found this to be the most effective part of the book. His argument that finding alternative ways to perceive the universe can be empowering is actually quite persuasive, and his examples of such alternative perceptions are intiguing. If nothing else, it is helpful to be reminded that our current understanding of our world could prove to be just as inaccurate as earlier views of the universe. I read this expecting little more than some light entertainment, but I've come away with some serious food for thought...

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books