Doubt: A History
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Book Overview
In the tradition of grand sweeping histories such as From Dawn To Decadence, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and A History of God, Hecht champions doubt and questioning as one of the great and noble, if unheralded, intellectual traditions that distinguish the Western mind especially-from Socrates to Galileo and Darwin to Wittgenstein and Hawking. This is an account of the world's greatest 'intellectual virtuosos, ' who are also humanity's greatest doubters and disbelievers, from the ancient Greek philosophers, Jesus, and the Eastern religions, to modern secular equivalents Marx, Freud and Darwin--and their attempts to reconcile the seeming meaninglessness of the universe with the human need for meaning,
This remarkable book ranges from the early Greeks, Hebrew figures such as Job and Ecclesiastes, Eastern critical wisdom, Roman stoicism, Jesus as a man of doubt, Gnosticism and Christian mystics, medieval Islamic, Jewish and Christian skeptics, secularism, the rise of science, modern and contemporary critical thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, the existentialists.
Customer Reviews
Rated 5 starsRich and beautifully written - must read for skeptics of all stripes
This book is excellent. The Freethought Society and Humanist Association in Philadelphia co-sponsor a Secular Book Club, and Doubt: A History was the first book we discussed. Surprisingly, the moderator said the book wasn't recommended to him, but rather, he found it by browsing in a book store. That's a shame because this book is such a wonderful survey of religious doubt in the Western World, that also touches on some aspects...
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Rated 5 starsAmazing.
History is normally taught as a series of conquests -- this man over those men; this nation over that nation; this religion or idea over that culture; and so on. History is presented as tedium punctuated by fits of violence. How much more useful to humankind it would be if history were taught like this: as the struggle of the concepts underpinning human liberty and dignity -- physical, intellectual, spiritual -- to survive...
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Rated 5 starsThe New Classic
There are millions of books out there offering to seduce you or browbeat you toward a particular belief system, but for the thoughtful philosophers, the nervous doubters, the nonbelievers (both lost and found), and evangelical athiests, there are very few well-written, even-handed, inspiring texts. Jennifer Hecht deserves a wreath of laurels for creating an exciting, readable, joyous work that belongs in the home of every...
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Rated 5 starsthe Best History Book I've read this year
Jennifer Hecht has written a courageous book in the face of the current groundswell of fundamentalist thinking. It is a very thoroughly documented history of some of the greatest thinkers in every era. She also sites many lesser known sages and provides us plenty of examples to support her argument. She uses a very personal sometimes humorous style that makes this tome compelling throughout the whole book. For those in need...
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Rated 5 starsDoubt as a journey.
Hecht does us freethinker apologists a great service here. She gives us an eloquent and exhaustive account of the process of doubt through history. For the most part, the people she depicts here are skeptics, rather than cynics. Their humanistic values come from their own evaluations and struggles with objective truth, rather than a wholesale rejection based on suspicion of motives of others (although that does pop up from...
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