Product Description

Why is the human imagination to blame for the worst crimes of the twentieth century? Why is progress a pernicious myth? Why is contemporary atheism just a hangover from Christian faith? John Gray, author of Straw Dogs and Black Mass, is one of the most original and iconoclastic thinkers of our time. In this pugnacious and brilliantly readable collection of essays from across his career, he smashes through humanity’s most cherished beliefs to overturn our view of the world, and our place in it. ‘If humans are different from other animals it is chiefly in being governed by myths, which are not creations of the will but creatures of the imagination.’ ‘No traditional myth is as untruthful as the modern myth of progress. All prevailing philosophies embody the fiction that human life can be altered at will. Better aim for the impossible, they say, than submit to fate. Invariably, the result is a cult of human self-assertion that soon ends in farce.’

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30033 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 496 pages

Review
'The closest thing we have to a window-smashing French intellectual' - Andrew Marr 'The most important living philosopher' - Will Self

About the Author
John Gray is most recently the acclaimed author of Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions, Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern and Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. He is Emeritus Professor of European Thought at the University of London.

Customer Reviews

dry bones
The title must have seemed like a good idea at the time; now it is simply misleading to anyone who doesn't already know Gray's work. The selection itself gives more than a flavour of Gray's formidable powers as a philosopher and food for thought on many a long winter night.