May 13 2007
The Swann Galleries in New York are holding an auction of the polar library of Dr. John M. Levinson, a past President of the Explorers Club. Included in the Lots is one of only 65 extant copies of the first book published in Antarctica, Ernest Shackleton’s Aurora Australis, 1908. This copy of the book is [...]
Oct 17 2006
The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker is one of those books that you should never read before heading out to meet friends. Quite pleasant conversations about gardening or sports will be interrupted by a diatribe as you attempt to explain the mind-blowing chapter you have just read. This will inevitably lead to an argument as [...]
Jul 22 2006
‘Every man is an impossibility, until he is born; everything impossible, until we see a success.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson rocks. I’d read about Emerson in Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club and made a note to find out more about this polymath of the 19th Century. Reading his essays on Self Reliance, History and his controversial [...]
Jun 28 2006
“A century from now, when historians write about our era, one question will dwarf all others, and it won’t be about finance or politics or even terrorism. The question will be, simply, how could our rich and civilised society allow a known and beatable enemy to kill millions of people.” This is the question Greg [...]
Jun 14 2006
I was a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to philosophy. I think the first book that really got me thinking about the subject (if we don’t count Dawkin’s Selfish Gene, which got me thinking about everything) was A.C. Grayling’s What is Good?, a superb and accessible read. Since then, I’ve been following [...]
Mar 24 2006
A fantastic article by Josiah Ober on what we can learn from Classical Athens about the true strengths of democracy. (Via).
Mar 23 2006
An event I was gutted to miss was the recent Selfish Gene: Thirty Years On at the LSE, which had such luminaries as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet riffing on each other’s work. Luckily the transcripts and recording are now online. (Via).
Mar 15 2006
Imagine a textile factory where the water comes out purer than when it went in, imagine an auto plant roofed with meadow grasses that is the home of nesting wild birds, imagine a home that produces more energy than it uses where the very concept of waste is unknown. Bill McDonough is the design genius [...]