Nonzero

出版者:Pantheon

作者:Robert Wright

页数:448

出版时间:1999-12-20

价格:USD 27.50

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780679442523

具体描述

At the beginning of Nonzero, Robert Wright sets out to "define the arrow of the history of life, from the primordial soup to the World Wide Web." Twenty-two chapters later, after a sweeping and vivid narrative of the human past, he has succeeded — and has mounted a powerful challenge to the conventional view that evolution and human history are aimless.

Ingeniously employing game theory — the logic of "zero-sum" and "non-zero-sum" games — Wright isolates the impetus behind life's basic direction: the impetus that, via biological evolution, created complex, intelligent animals and then, via cultural evolution, pushed the human species toward deeper and vaster social complexity. In this view, the coming of today's interdependent global society was "in the cards" — not quite inevitable, perhaps, but, as Wright puts it, "so probable as to inspire wonder." So probable, indeed, as to invite speculation about higher purpose, especially in light of "the phase of history that seems to lie immediately ahead: a social, political, and even moral culmination of sorts."

In a work of vast erudition and pungent wit, Wright takes on some of the past century's most prominent thinkers, including Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Dawkins. He finds evidence for his position in unexpected corners, from native American hunter-gatherer societies and Polynesian chiefdoms to medieval Islamic commerce and precocious Chinese technology; from conflicts of interest among a cell's genes to discord at the World Trade Organization.

Wright argues that a coolly scientific appraisal of humanity's three-billion-year past can give new spiritual meaning to the present and even offer political guidance for the future. Nonzero will change the way people think about the human prospect.

作者简介

Robert Wright is the author of Three Scientists and Their Gods and The Moral Animal, which was named by the New York Times Book Review as one of the twelve best books of the year and has been published in nine languages. A recipient of the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism, Wright has published in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Time, and Slate. He was previously a senior editor at The New Republic and The Sciences and now runs the Web site nonzero.org. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two daughters.

读后感

全球化时代信息传播的速度是惊人的。一方面，人们可以通过电视直播观看伊拉克战争中美军威力无边的新式武器，欣赏星条旗在伊拉克到处飘扬的壮举。另一方面，学术界也以极快的速度将美国思想界的最新声音传送到国内。不久前，美国著名学者法兰西斯·福山访问中国，使我们有机会...  

逻辑牵强，引用过多，缺乏第一手信息，翻译尤其差，不知所云；居然把知识产权，intellecture property翻译成智慧财产。 平均每章出现名人名言3-5段，如果每次都要脱帽致敬的话，基本上就别想戴帽子了。作者是不是靠旁征博引上位的？  

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用户评价

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合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。

合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。

合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。

合作推进人类结构演变和文明发展进程，并带领社会向更好的某种既定未来的进化。 很多新颖观点，值得重读。