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Reviews
of Substantific Marrow
His arguments, conjoining
tidbits of history you never knew about or never thought
of relating to each other and suggesting contacts and
influences standard history knows not of, take side
roads that tend to be far more enlivening than the
well-trodden highway that bored us in high school. If
you're going to read about Aristotle, would you rather
it be in the context of analytics and the five elements
or the sex life of molluscs? I thought so.
His credo is "To me studies of
concrete particulars (history, geography, philology) are
infinitely more interesting than their theoretical
explanations, and the fully-theorized studies
(marginalist economics, analytic philosophy, 'literary
studies') are abominations," and I happily subscribe to
it. If you prefer shiny and unusual facts and
suggestions to the dull coin of Standard Theories, this
is the book for you.
Language Hat
Emerson puts himself squarely in the
camp of the Renaissance humanists, like Rabelais and
Bacon, who derided scholasticism (and he uses the same
word, equating it with modern analytic philosophy) for
its narrowminded pedantry—and in Rabelais's case, for
its lack of fun. John wants the humanities to be kept at
the generalist level—he wants it still to be fun. And so
he contributes, with both his blog and his new book, to
our enjoyment of the humanities at the generalist level.
Varieties of Unreligious Experience
Michael Blowhard
An
Elegant Author Deserving of the Patronage of a Refined
and Enlightened Public
I am currently holding my
lovely, brand-new copy of
John Emerson's
Substantific Marrow.
If you enjoy this blog, then it is very likely that you,
too, want to
buy a copy of
Substantific Marrow, though you may not
be aware of this fact.
Cosma Shalizi
John Emerson has
self-published a book of essays. They're short and
wildly varied -- a really funny reaction to one of the
sillier bits of Freud; an argument for atheism based on
the proposition that God couldn't hide in a sock drawer;
a piece ranging from the Barbary pirates, through the
mutiny on which Billy Budd was based, to The Good Ship
Ruben James; reviews of books, mostly history; and
unclassifiable bits of other stuff..... If this is
the sort of thing you like, it's a great book to have in
your bag for a commute, or any time you have fifteen
minutes to read a couple of pages on something odd.
Unfogged.com
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