by Ken Wilber
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Product Description
In a breathtaking trip from the Big Bang to the Postmodern world we inhabit, Ken Wilber examines the universe and our place in it, and comes up with an accessible and entertaining account of how it all fits together. Along the way he sheds light not only on the great cosmic questions but on various contentious issues of our day, such as changing gender roles, environmentalism, diversity and multiculturalism, even the meaning of the Internet. A Brief History of Everything is the perfect introduction to the great Integral thinker at his wise and witty best.
Amazon.com Review
This account of men and women's place in a universe of sex and gender, self and society, spirit and soul is written in question-and-answer format, making it both readable and accessible. Wilber offers a series of original views on many topics of current controversy, including the gender wars, multiculturalism, modern liberation movements, and the conflict between various approaches to spirituality.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
An interesting book on truth and knowledge, 2008-08-20
Ken Wilber's, A Brief History of Everything, is not about everything. For example it does not include Al Gianfriddo robbing Joe Dimaggio of a home run in the 1947 World Series. Wilber, however, might argue that it does. The book is an attempt to integrate all knowledge. For Wilber there is no such thing as a single truth. Instead knowledge is divided into four quadrants. Two are exterior (Individual) and exterior (collective--social). Wilber puts these on the upper and lower right sides of his scheme. On the left side he puts interior truths, which again he divides into individual and collective--cultural. Thus regarding the above example Wilber might argue that one aspect of truth is the exterior individual--what we can see--Gianfriddo catching a ball hit by Dimaggio. This event, however, does not take place in isolation, thus there is a social aspect to it--baseball and the physical environment of the World Series. Turning to the left side of the quadrant we have those aspects of truth that have to do with mental processes. First there are the internal thoughts of indivduals. These will differ according to the views held by such individuals. Those who supported the Dodgers will feel happy, while Yankee fans will be despondent. Those who do not care about baseball will be indifferent. Finally, there are those internal collective views, namely the attitudes and beliefs of the society toward baseball in general. In sum what Wilber is saying is that all the world's cultures have important, but partial truths.
Wilber traces the development of truth over time starting from the earliest recorded history. Initially the interior forms dominated with religion, magic and other spiritual considerations forming the basis of what is regarded as true. But with the enlightenment and the development of science, truth became reduced, to use his term, and everything collapsed into the right side of the paradigm. Truth became only that which could be seen and measured and the left, or inner, interpretive side became ignored. Thus what Wilber is trying to do is to integrate the innner and exterior aspects of truth, both for individuals and the larger society.
Much of the book is quite esoteric and difficult to understand. Wilber makes reference to numerous ideas and philosophers that the average person has little knowledge of. Thus to try to understand the book in minute detail would be time-consuming and difficult. Rather it is more useful to realize his basic points and see how they relate to present-day thinking.
Wilber also provides insights into how ideas developed. For example he shows how women's rights are connected to the development of agriculture. He also provides summaries of his main points so that the reader can get a better grasp of his ideas.
All in all this is an interesting and thought provoking book.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 Who heard of holons?, 2008-08-03
I just couldn't get through this book. By trying to claim this was about everything, it covered nothing, save perhaps new age woo.
I knew it was going to be bad when he made up a new word for a meaningless concept. He claims that everything is both a whole, onto itself, and a part of something larger, called a "holon". I admit I have a pet peeve against authors that make up new words because they are not aware that other people have perfect good words that mean the same thing.
He completely lost me, and I am certain many intelligent people who know anything at all about Biology, when he said that very few theorist believe in Darwin's theory about chance mutation and natural selection. (Page 20, he really said that!) Yes, yes, we do. And if he wants to propose an alternative hypothesis (in science it doesn't get to be called a theory until after you prove it) then he better have some extraordinary new evidence, because natural selection IS the generally accepted theory.
Just like the Heliocentric theory (that the Earth goes around the Sun, not vice versa) is currently the generally accepted theory. Yes, I am sure it is a theory, not a fact or a law.
This book has a preview. I strongly suggest that you use it, before you spend any money.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 amazed at wilber's ability to turn the dense lucid , 2008-06-18
wilber is worth all the hype:
he is a true pioneer of
the emerging phase of planetary evolution.
this book is a great primer.
here he masterfully weaves multiple threads
from hugely diverse sources;
from science to mysticism,
from history to philosophy.
the result is stunningly precise thoughts
yet infused with moments of poetical flares,
and a myriad of insights!
at every page i found myself
amazed at his ability
to turn the dense lucid.
his writings lure us
into the sway of the mystic-
but this is a mysticism that is very earthy
yet always transcending our grasp.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
 "A mistake inside of an enigma wrapped in bubble-wrap.", 2008-06-03
Through an unfortunate clicking error, I accidentally purchased a copy of Ken Wilber's opus "A Brief History of Everything." I had read snippets of other Wilber books in the past and was saddened by my purchasing error when the box arrived from Amazon.
I reminded myself, however, that in the past I had made other purchasing mistakes and had then been ultimately pleased by the book when I finally got down to reading it. That was not the case with "A Brief History".
Armed with two undergraduate degrees, a doctorate, and a lifetime love of general reading on a broad host of subjects, I dove in. I felt that my education and experiences were both broad and narrow enough to decipher Wilber. I soon re-discovered that reading Wilber is like having your brain pushed through the extra-gooey sludge layer of popular intellectualism. His convoluted syntax is surpassed only by his wholly imaginary vocabulary. This kind of psycho-babble, new-age charlatanism should be reserved exclusively for the conversion of Silicon Valley CEOs to Wilber's zen-narcissism. The book should carry a safety warning for the general public. I am dumber having read it.
Reluctantly, I gave the book two stars, for three reasons. First, the cover photo on the book is the largest head shot of any author ever. It would have never fit on the back jacket flap. Second, Wilber's child-like belief in a universal unitarianism refreshes my own desire to believe in the transcendence of human nature. (Unless you think he's just saying all this stuff to sell books and lectures to Silicon Valley CEOs . . .?!). Finally, I'm amazed that he could string so many imaginary words together and make them sound like sentences.
Well, at least I got bubble-wrap.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Kosmology 101, 2008-02-02
One of the best and most useful maps of the Kosmos ever conceived. A clear introduction to Wilber's seminal Integral Theory. Meant for the general reader, it is much less cumbersome than Wilber's more detailed and scholarly works. Wilber's effort is essentially an attempt to map together all known models of development from every field of knowledge, East and West. He discovers an elegant means of fitting them all together, which is brilliant in its simplicity and potent in its explanatory power. Basically, any given thing in the universe exhibits the essential aspects of the interior, exterior, individual, and collective, beyond which it cannot be reduced without damage. These aspects are mapped out in terms of the 4 "quadrants". There is an interior individual and an interior collective aspect to any phenomenon; likewise an exterior individual and exterior collective to the same. The dualisms of mind/body, self/other, spirit/world, etc are seen as different perspectives-- views from different quadrants-- of the same phenomena. Neither can be reduced to the other. In addition, phenomena can't be understood without reference to their levels or stages of development. Wilber discovers a "holarchy" (as opposed to hierarchy) of the evolutionary development in which individual phenomena, or "holons", tend towards both increased complexity and greater depth. This is essentially a process of the expansion of the contexts of identity from self, to community, to world, to universe, and beyond. This is the basic framework of Wilber's AQAL model (all quadrants, all levels). Sounds abstract, but Wilber breaks it down into the simplest and most relevant terms. You will view the world and yourself differently after reading this book.
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