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141st out of 266 books
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626 voters
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A Brief History of Everything
by
Ken Wilber
In a breathtaking trip from the Big Bang to the Postmodern world we inhabit, Ken Wilber examines the universe and our place in it, and comes up with an accessible and entertaining account of how it all fits together. Along the way he sheds light not only on the great cosmic questions but on various contentious issues of our day, such as changing gender roles, environmental...more
Mass Market Paperback, 544 pages
Published
March 27th 2007
by Shambhala
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Here's how Ken Wilbur would write "Three Blind Mice"
Three decrepit rodents
Three decrepit rodents
Observe how they motivate
Observe how they motivate
They motivate after the agricultural spouse
Who severed their rears with the culinary shears
Have you ever witnessed such a deplorable condition
As Three decrepit rodents.
point being... way too complicated a way to express the simplest concepts.
He's just making himself feel...more
Three decrepit rodents
Three decrepit rodents
Observe how they motivate
Observe how they motivate
They motivate after the agricultural spouse
Who severed their rears with the culinary shears
Have you ever witnessed such a deplorable condition
As Three decrepit rodents.
point being... way too complicated a way to express the simplest concepts.
He's just making himself feel...more
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How do you write sensibly about a book that makes no sense and, in fact, tries to make you question everything you've always thought was true?
I just accidently dropped this book in the toilet so it may be a while before I get around to picking it up again.
Dude is a genius (of the narcissistic variety - aren't they usually?). This book is sometimes hard to read, especially when he tries to reference everything under the sun. For those of us who don't know everything, the references become too much - looking every person and theory referenced would be like dissertation research. However, this relatively early (in Wilber's bio, that is) attempt at an umbrella theory of various aspects of life (psychology, spirituality, scientific discovery, etc.)...more
In addressing cosmic, biological, human and divine evolution, Ken Wilber impressively populates 500 pages worth of synthesis of Western and Non-Western spiritual tradition creating a thinking framework for everything in life. Wilber comprehensively dissects and re-assembles the parts and wholes of the ontology, epistemology and methodology for what he has coined as“integral theory”.
It feels like an impossible task to synthesize this reading into a meaningful review and make “A Brief Hi...more
It feels like an impossible task to synthesize this reading into a meaningful review and make “A Brief Hi...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
One of the best and most useful maps of the Kosmos ever conceived. A clear introduction to Wilber's seminal Integral Theory. Meant for the general reader, it is much less cumbersome than Wilber's more detailed and scholarly works. Wilber's effort is essentially an attempt to map together all known models of development from every field of knowledge, East and West. He discovers an elegant means of fitting them all together, which is brilliant in its simplicity and potent in its explanatory power....more
More then anything else about this book, I appreciate what Wilber is attempting to do with his integration of Eastern and Western philosophies. I am doubtful of little and disagree with even less in this book. Most of my criticism of this book are stylistic. Foremost, is Wilber’s tone tends towards the pedantic, didactic, and patronising, which can be grating. Once I got past this I found this book more interesting and useful, specifically the second half (the first half deals more with develop...more
It was weird. This month I read Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker and it referenced Arthur Koestler's writings on evolution, so I decided it was high time to read Darkness at Noon, then I find out that Koestler is the one who coined the term Holon, so I dug out Wilber. I read a little Wilber in college, but never finished the book. So, I read it today and liked it in parts. My main complaint with Wilber is he tries to square the corners of the Kosmos too neatly. I find him simultaneously empty ...more
The book begins with the premise that gender differences arose because women who participated in vigorous activities had a high rate of miscarriage. This is either: misogynous, naive, or stupid.
There needs to be a category for books "that I can't stand to finish."
There needs to be a category for books "that I can't stand to finish."
While Wilber's former work as a scientist has given him a vast understanding of human evolutionary development through the ages, and he has some acuity about psychological development (though it is mostly drawn from Piaget, Foucault and Erikson), he ultimately has beliefs about how meditation can unlock what can only be described as super powers when humans ascend to his sixth and seventh levels of development. Like symbolic logic, however, each previous level should provide the fundamental proo...more
Great conceptual model which integrates our individual and collective internal and external views of reality. However, the interview style didn't do it for me and became an irritation after a while. Also, throughout the book he recapitulates and repeats and paraphrases and... it didn't help me as a lay reader - the book could have been more concise and less thick without losing any depth to his ideas and explanations. Overall, worth tackling if you're an eclectic intellectual who likes to integr...more
Wilber at his pompous and condescending worst. The title and cover say it all. This book is pretty much and advertisement for all his other books. Some of which ARE worth reading, just not this one.
Crap. An astonishingly deluded or mendacious philosopher attempting to integrate science and mysticism into one coherent world view, with the rather predictable result of abject failure.
my brother's loss is my gain
Elizabeth
added it
from the library and A brief history of everything [sound recording (book on CD)]
I keep putting off reading and reviewing this
" " " " " " " on audio also
Table of Contents
Foreword xi
Tony Schwartz
Preface to the Second Edition xv
A Note to the Reader xix
Introduction 1 (12)
Part One: Spirit-in-Action 13 (110)
The Pattern That Conne...more
I keep putting off reading and reviewing this
" " " " " " " on audio also
Table of Contents
Foreword xi
Tony Schwartz
Preface to the Second Edition xv
A Note to the Reader xix
Introduction 1 (12)
Part One: Spirit-in-Action 13 (110)
The Pattern That Conne...more
(This review was an entry on my blog.)
I was first exposed to Ken Wilber when I found his book, A Brief History of Everything, on my Dad’s bookshelf. (I am always attracted to bookshelves.) My Dad didn’t have much to say about the book except that I could take it. He told me that it was a selection of the Mira Costa College book group that met monthly to discuss their selections and vote upon others.
The book sat on my shelf for a couple years while I attempted to start rea...more
I was first exposed to Ken Wilber when I found his book, A Brief History of Everything, on my Dad’s bookshelf. (I am always attracted to bookshelves.) My Dad didn’t have much to say about the book except that I could take it. He told me that it was a selection of the Mira Costa College book group that met monthly to discuss their selections and vote upon others.
The book sat on my shelf for a couple years while I attempted to start rea...more
Not as good as some of his others, but he admits this is merely a summary of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Wilber gets achingly repetitive in places, and the Q&A format is annoying as hell, so that takes away from the book and made it a pain to get through. However, his brilliance shines through in summarizing so much information (particularly re: philosophical & spiritual movements) and synthesizing it. I can't say his detractors don't have ammo, he can be incredibly narcissistic, pedantic, and c...more
This book is hard to review, really the rating is the mean between a 5 and a 1. Wilber is a basically a self-taught philosopher who tries to articulate a theory of everything. By working outside the limits of academia, he doesn't seem to have to specialize as much as other intellectuals. In this sense, his broad focus is refreshing and intriguing. Writing about consciousness, I appreciated the case he made for being able to look both at an individual's interior experience as well as looking at a...more
Phew. No way to give this book a fair shake by virtue of a summary.
Wilber throws a hell of a lot at you, and I'd be lying if I tried to pretend a lot of it hasn't altered significant portions of my mental landscape.
There are drawbacks, the most significant being that Wilber's tone can tend toward the flippant and patronizing, particularly when discussing feminism and multiculturalism--subjects that, as a white male, he is perhaps obliged to be a bit more careful about ...more
Wilber throws a hell of a lot at you, and I'd be lying if I tried to pretend a lot of it hasn't altered significant portions of my mental landscape.
There are drawbacks, the most significant being that Wilber's tone can tend toward the flippant and patronizing, particularly when discussing feminism and multiculturalism--subjects that, as a white male, he is perhaps obliged to be a bit more careful about ...more
Sylvia
rated it
Recommends it for:
people who feels that they know only too litle.
Shelves:
infusingtheignorantme
The idea proposed by Ken Wilber is that the kosmos, and so are the entities which form it, consist of four quadrants: the upper left which deals with the subjectivity of an entity (I), the lower left which deals with culture, a collective subjectivity (WE), the upper right which deals with an entity which can be located easily so it is called objective (IT), and the lower right which deals with social structure, easily located, too (also called IT). To make it simpler, the four quadrants are als...more
How does a Seeker of knowledge download 2,000 plus years of human history in a few days of reading? Easy. Read or listen to Ken Wilber's brilliant synopsis neatly packaged into an elegant model of everything. The "Integral Model" will change the way you view your own life challenges and the world's enormous geopolitical problems forever. I highly recommend this book and think every politician and college student in America should have this book in their collection.
Where to start with this one? It takes some time but it is worth it. I believe there was some sort of portal that quietly opened up in the collective unconscious in the 90s and books like this were written. Some of us were ready for a kind of pragmatic spirituality and I believe more of us are every day, if on a much more unconscious level. This book is as cerebral as it is mystical...that last word is a bit of a dirty one for most of us, myself included, but if we are totally honest with ou...more
I hear and agree with many of the critical reviews of this book. And would add this if it hasn't been said already: Enough of the bogus, condescending Q&A format. And yet... I love the integral vision/theory. I may not love Ken Wilbur or his style, but I feel sure he's trying to communicate something that is True and I thank him for that.
This book is rich. It covers a LOT of territory, but manages to do so in a very ornate and detailed fashion. I have yet to take as much from another single book as I have this one. A profound learning experience of incredible depth, aiding in the understanding of the human circumstance, and what the hell is really going on here. Highly recommended.
Fascinating premise here. Wilber puts to pen a beautiful structure (back up by some of the top scientists of our time) in explaining the inner and outer workings of our place in the universe and beyond. This book will leave you pondering and dreaming through a whole new lens. I will be referring back to it often.
I have this in Finnish though...
Somehow reading this felt like remembering something already familiar. I like the way Wilber thinks, sees the connections and patterns in the world, combining them. Those few visual graphics in the book helped me a lot to clarify the message of the text.
Somehow reading this felt like remembering something already familiar. I like the way Wilber thinks, sees the connections and patterns in the world, combining them. Those few visual graphics in the book helped me a lot to clarify the message of the text.
I have never considered myself a reader of philosophy type material but Ken Wilber's books, and this one especially, has helped me to understand what one could call the "bigger picture of things", which I think is vitally important in view of the skewed news that most media spew out.
Ok... have to confess I haven't read all of this book. I had to return it to it's owner. However, I loved what I read of it. It was a little difficult to keep up with Mr.Wilber, but not so hard as to discourage me from reading it and liking it.
A synopsis of his much more lengthy writing about why science, religion (and spirituality), sociology and psychology are not at odds with each other. If I could make everyone on earth read one book, this would be it.
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Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, and is the first philosopher-psychologist to have his Collected Works published while still alive. Wilber is an internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, which continues to gather momentum around the world. Hi...more
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“The truth will not necessarily set you free, but truthfulness will.”
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