Ockham's Razor by Canadian author Wade Rowland
“Bold and incisive, full of smarts, wit, and self-awareness, it’s an erudite and entertaining inquiry into nothing less than what is in the modern, millenial world and what should be.”
Quill & Quire
“delightful travel book-cum-philosophical exploration that will remind the reader of Robert Pirsig’s eccentric 1970s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
Bronwyn Drainie, Author and critic
“very readable and intelligently provocative.”
Philip Marchand, Toronto Star newspaper
“Part travelogue, part philosophical treatise, part random musing — perhaps it’s more helpful to call it equal parts Plato, Robert Pirsig and Peter Mayle — it is a book of metaphysical rummaging, of thoughtful meandering.
The real guiding strength of the book is the desire to bring together, or to distinguish between, the world of science or fact and the world of spirituality or wonder. Few writers are so rooted in the past, or perhaps so forward-looking, as to be able to dissect these two world-views. Rowland does so with a light touch and an eclectic intelligence, and with a deep appreciation of the marvels that are everywhere around us.”
Peter O’Brien,The Globe and Mail newspaper –
“Ockham’s Razor sticks pins in the smug assumption that our modern civilization is the pinnacle of human development. Indeed, this book makes us question the values at the very heart of contemporary thought. It makes us long for another time when people were in harmony with the universe rather than struggling to dominate. it.”
Norm Bolen, Vice-President of Programming, History Television
“Wade Rowland is in love with Provencal history and cooking, and what they may have to teach us about the nature of belief. The path he traces from medieval heresy to modern materialism is interesting and provocative.”
Ronald Wright, author of A Scientific Romance
“A fascinating account of the perils and promise of parting company with the predictable. The book documents a wonderful family experiment in living and learning differently, maybe even dangerously.”
Pamela Wallin, Pamela Wallin Live
“This beautiful book tells us about values and about how important it is that we get back to them over and beyond our trust in science and rationality. Paradoxically, Ockham’s Razor has healing power. It doesn’t reconcile the reader with the end of a rough century, nor does it attempt to do so, but it brings us gently, surely to a position where we can better perceive ways to explore our world and accept our place in it.”
Derrick de Kerchkhove, Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology
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Chosen as an “Indigo Book Pick”
“A Canadian family piles into a rental car in France and goes off in search of great cuisine, inspiring architecture and the meaning of life. Amazingly, they find all three in this delightful travel book-cum-philosophical exploration that will remind the reader of Robert Pirsig’s eccentric 1970s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
A journalist with an abiding interest in modern communications technologies, Rowland laments the emptiness and lack of values at the heart of the scientific worldview. His solution: to revisit the Middle Ages, the thousand-year-long Age of Faith that held universal sway in western culture before Galileo, Descartes and Newton came along and bled our lives of meaning. Science, writes Rowland, teaches us the how of everything in the universe, but only faith in some kind of omnipotent organizing principle can teach us the why.
This is a book to argue with, throw down, pick up, ponder and ultimately admire for its courage in challenging the entire scientific-rational-corporatist mindset of our times.”
Bronwyn Drainie, book reviewer, cultural commentator, and author of My Jerusalem: Secular Adventures in the Holy City.
Chapters Bookstore – Chapters Review:
“As we approach the millennium, people seem to be searching for meaningful dialogues and answers to their most pressing issues. Wade Rowland is a former CBC journalist who offers a provocative and philosophical look at the middle ages, its systems of thought and views of reality. In so doing he touches on themes of architecture, philosophers, art and assumptions we make about reality in Ockham’s Razor: A Search for Wonder in an Age of Doubt.
In the tradition of Stephen Jay Gould and John Ralston Saul, Rowland’s reasoned observations are a much-needed tonic in this age of preposterous claims and rash and meaningless human constructs.”
ChaptersGlobe review
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About Wade Rowland
Ranked among Canada’s leading literary journalists, Wade Davies Rowland has written more than a dozen books on subjects ranging from television journalism, organized crime, and international environmental law to his current concerns, which include communications technology, the philosophy of science, and technology and human values. Full author bio.