Conversations About the End of Time

Conversations About the End of Time

Product ID: 13929

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Author: Umberto Eco
Stephen Jay Gould/Jean-Claude Carriere
Editor(s): Catherine David/Frederic Lenoir/Jean-Philippe de
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 228
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0713993634

Description

Where does our fascination with the apocalypse come from? Is time cyclical or linear? Can society survive without ideology? Can the parallel-universe theory really help solve the great mysteries of science? Why did war become an industrialized phenomenon in the twentieth century? How do different religions understand what is meant by the end of time? Is the communications era an age of great lone-lines? Can children be philosophers?

In a series of unusually thought-provoking conversations, Umberto Eco, Stephen Jay Gould, Jean Delumeau and Jean-Claude Carriere examine our preoccupations at the end of this millennium, cast back to the fears and hopes of previous generations, and consider the challenges to come. Mixing the humorous with the profound, they tackle a vast range of fundamental questions which have long taxed the minds not only of our greatest thinkers, but of most of the rest of us too.

As four great witnesses of our closing century, each has his own perspective and expertise to offer. Stephen Jay Gould sets about unravelling the mysteries surrounding the history of the calendar, while Umberto Eco tells us how he makes his diagnosis of the mental state of the planet surfing the byways of the Web. Jean-Claude Carrier talks of the virtues of doing things slowly, and Jean Delumeau reminds us that drams contribute in the same way as acts do to the shaping of our destinies.

Fascinating, challenging and unnerving-no less than you would expect from such a distinguished group-Conversations about The end of Time takes its place in the great tradition of human enquiry.

Contents

Foreword

Stephen Jay Gould
Time Scales and the Year 2000

Jean Delumeau
Back to the Apocalypse

Jean-Claude Carriere
Answering the Sphinx

Umberto Eco
Sings of the Times

Conclusions