A scholar’s biography, this book will become a standard work for students of Hobbes (1588—1679). Martinich (Philosophy/Univ. of Texas, Austin) offers a mixture of personal and intellectual biography situating Hobbes in historical context as well as examining his philosophy. The presentation is chronological, with brief analytical detours to explore texts; Leviathan receives attention, of course, but also Hobbes’s lesser-known and especially his earlier writings. Disagreements among scholars are noted throughout regarding not only interpretation of Hobbes’s thought, but also details of his life. Basic facts—e.g., Hobbes’s whereabouts at particular points in time or his relations with friends and other intellectuals of the day—cannot always be established unambiguously, and Martinich identifies these cases and defends his opinion. The result is a catalogue of current thinking on Hobbes’s life, a valuable tool for historians as well as philosophers. This intellectual tour de force may not appeal to a popular audience, but it is leavened with occasional glimpses of a dry wit. For example, after describing Hobbes’s monotonous report on a tour of the continent with the young William Cavendish, Martinich notes that William’s father “was fortunate that Hobbes could not take photographic slides to be shown in the living room.” We also see Hobbes’s personality in these pages, and apparently he is as cranky and self-impressed as you would expect from his writings. His inability to gain admission into the Royal Society, for example, stemmed not only from scientific disagreements, but also the perception by some members that he would be a “bore.” While “a witty and engaging conversationalist” on occasion, his belief in absolute sovereignty was matched by a belief in the absolute truth of his own philosophy, a quality few could find endearing. Yet there is an intriguing unconventionality to the man: anyone whose daily routine includes singing to himself because he believes it contributes to good health can’t be all bad. A detailed and substantial work. (16 b&w photos)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-521-49583-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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