The Firmament of Time | Loren Eiseley | A beautifully written and profound book -- one of the...

The Firmament of Time | Loren Eiseley | A profound meditation on our evolving understanding of the natural world and human nature itself

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The Firmament of Time

	The Firmament of Time Loren Eiseley Bison Books, 1999 - 183 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Loren Eiseley examines what we as a species have become in the late twentieth century. His illuminating and accessible discussion is a characteristically skillful and compelling synthesis of hard scientific theory, factual evidence, personal anecdotes, haunting reflection, and poetic prose.

A beautifully written and profound book -- one of the best accounts of the human meaning of geological time

Loren Eiseley remains one of the most articulate of Twentieth Century naturalists, who approaches anthropology from the perspective that human beings belong to nature and approaches evolutionary and other natural sciences from the perspective of a humanist. He aims to bring to life the way of thinking according to which everything is natural, without diminishing the sense of wonder at nature and humanity that would result from a crass materialism. This book, in my humble view, is one of his best and was the most profound for me. It gave me the tools and the words to consider events on a different time scale than the one we normally associate with history. He suggests for example, that you consider a slow sequence of water droplets, continued and magnified over centuries, and get a sense for the wonder and force of time. What was a trickle is now a flood, and the process of erosion and geological transformation can come to life in your mind's eye. It is this kind of imagination, that can grasp the firmament of time on an other than merely human historical scale, that is required to really come to grips with anything like the general process of evolution. We begin to see, not sudden and chance emergence of freaks, but dynamic reproductive flows, channelled by selective pressures, gradually altering the ecotopology. I don't believe I could have written that sentence had I never read Loren Eiseley -- but of course I can't claim to approximate in any of these sentences the marvelous economy with which Mr. Eiseley wields his pen.

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A profound meditation on our evolving understanding of the natural world and human nature itself

This work is a profound retelling of Mankind's changed understanding not only of the natural world, but of the nature of human nature. Eiseley in his poetic and contemplative prose traces Modern Science's transformation of the picture of Nature Mankind long held. This relates not simply to extending the time- frame of cosmic and terrestial happening, but to rereading the very nature of human nature. But Eiseley does not simply describe the movement from a static world- view of permanent unchangeable species to an evolutionary one of emerging Life, he makes a penentrating critique or certain aspects of Scientific Culture upon human life and Nature itself. And while doing he insists on our holding open an understanding of the Nature which may yet emerge, and the mystery which remains within and perhaps beyond the Universe despite all our progress in understanding.
This is a profound poetic meditation on Nature and Human Nature, and one which however strongly based in fact leaves us with a feeling of question and wonder at what we are and will become.

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A Reflecton on Time, Evolution, and Natural History

Loren Eiseley is a man of great thoughts and words and here is at his best considering the passage of time, the evolution of life and development of man's perspective and insight on life and time. There were several passages in the book that I found so impressive that I subjected my wife and son to my out loud reading. The essay on the hall of the crustaceans is one of the best examples of how Eiseley turns his powers of observation and knowledge of natural history into a perspective of time and evolution that helps you feel and understand the eons of struggle for survival.

In this book Eiseley discusses the history and development of thought on evolution from the middle ages to the atomic era bringing all the names you remember from Biology 101 to life better than any textbook. This book was written in 1960 but the words seem contemporary and presceint.

Loren Eiseley is one of the only authors that can journey by horse across a mountain and carry you with his thoughts through eternity. I highly recommend this book, a short but powerful and stimulating read.

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Roger Welsch should not be listed with this book

roger welsch has nothing to do with this book! it is not entertainment nor humor! what's going on?

An Understanding Heart

Loren Eiseley is an imaginative writer and developes a reader's interest in his strange life. Eiseley explains his fascination with nature, which began as soon as he could crawl, and this interest was not really supported by anything in his environment. HIs parent's relationship is presented as the boy experienced it, and one feels sympathy for his father, whom Eiseley suggests stayed with his insane wife because of his son. HIs tangled relationship with his mother receives attention at the beginning and end of the book, when she died. It is as if Eisiley himself hasn't digested her impact upon him, which he minimalized as much as he could. For whatever reasons, he became a writer who had to explain interesting things, who thought interesting things, and, yet, was very lonely. It was a lonely life, beautiful though.

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