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| From Amazon |
I first read this book in grade 11, for my AP Environmental Science class. It was a good class, and it was a good book.
But time passes, you read a lot more books, and you forget some of the things you read.
While I never forgot the concept that was Ishmael, I did forget the details. So I read it again.
And man, what a good book.
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A man, looking for himself and his place in the world, reads a notice in the paper: Teacher seeking pupil who wants to change the world. When he arrives he finds himself face to face with a full grown gorilla, named Ishmael.
Ishmael takes us on a journey through the history of mankind, detailing out the relationship between humans and the rest of nature. Ishmael tries to teach us our mistakes, and how we can learn from them.
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So I will be the first to say that I don't think I really understood the book when I was 16, and I don't think I completely understand it now. I think I'll have to read it at least 3-4 more times before I can feel comfortable explaining the book.
But what I did take away from it, and did understand, was completely thought provoking. Everything we think of as human history is wrong. Like,really wrong.
I don't really know how much I can say about Ishmael without giving the book away, or getting something wrong. But the premise is at a certain point in human history, we made a choice. This choice took us away from what we are, animals living within nature, to what we thought we were, which is above nature.
And at that point, we brought upon our own extinction.
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Of course, topics like this are controversial. There are people that don't believe that our environment is in trouble and that we are simply following the path of evolution.
Except that how come no other animal has made this choice? There are other animals with the same level of intelligence as humans, but they don't dominate the world like we do.
And who is to say that we are done evolving? Why do humans believe we are the pinnacle of evolution? According the the theory of evolution, evolution never stops. So how come Homo sapiens sapiens believe we are where evolution stops?
I know this isn't quite as in depth as my last review, but this book is a lot easier to ruin. It's not a long book, but it is still not an easy read. I recommend it if you have the time, and if you are interested in changing the way you see yourself in the world.
Speak Loud!
From Amazon here
From Chapters here
