Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown

by Stephen Jay Gould

Book Overview

In the bestselling short-history format of Longitude and How the Irish Saved Civilization, this elegant volume by the author of such well-known works as The Panda's Thumb and The Flamingo's Smile explores the rational and religious roots of human fascination with the millennium. 16 illustrations.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609600761
• ISBN13: 9780609600764
• Release Date: September 1997
• Publisher: Harmony
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A joy to read

A joy to read. Gould makes a normally dry and tastless topic, humourous, and enjoyable. I loved the book, and everthing else by Gould I've ever read.

Questioning the Millennium

Stephen Jay Gould is entertaining. His work Questioning the Millennium is that questioning, but entertaining. I like Gould as an author and his essays are thought provoking.This work is no different. Complex calendars and the idea of a millennium and how it effects us as a whole. A whole host of ideas brought to us from Gould's questioning mind.This is a rather short work of essays, but no less provoking. As with all of Gould's essays... either you like them or despise them, idiosyncrasies and all.Nonetheless this is entertaining.

Cuts through the silliness with facts and reason

Whatever your opinion about the Millennium, this book will give you some facts to fill in the blanks of your knowledge. Gould is expert at this sort of explanation and at backing up his opinion with reason.It's well written, enjoyable and even surprisingly heart-warming in parts. Gould's opinion will be disappointing to all those people who feel that if something arbitrary was held true by experts in the past, we must follow it to the letter forevermore. His opinion will be refreshing to those who want to know WHY, WHAT, and WHEN and to those who would celebrate while the red-faced sticklers grumble.

a great read

The book was of perfect length. I thought it was a difficult to put down, information-rich short essay. I can honestly say that I've never really thought about calendrics before and Gould gives a wonderful description of the arbitrary and somewhat absurd nature of placing these numbers on nature. The book is concise and cohesive and ends on a beautiful note. I'll never look at easter and christmas the same and finally I understand leap years!

Interesting look at human nature using millenial fever.

Of great interest to anyone who's into history, psychology or the science of reasoning. Gould brings to light some truths about human nature by looking at the history of the millenium, calendar keeping, and our interesting fixation on the calendar numbers that we (not the universe) invented to keep time of the history of our species. Without giving too much away, I found the epilogue very moving. The book presents the reader with an opportunity to learn and think about the issues of calendar keeping, and be touched by some keen observations on human nature.