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Quill & Quire, April 1999 - Full Review 
Bronwyn Drainie, Author and critic Derrick de Kerchkhove, Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology Chapters Philip Marchand, Toronto Star newspaper Norm bolen, Vice-President of Programming, History Television Bronwyn Drainie, Author and critic Pamela Wallin, Pamela Wallin Live Peter O'Brien,The Globe and Mail newspaper Full review at Chapters or Indigo Books |
Reviews of OCKHAM'S RAZOR:
A Search for Wonder In An Age of Doubt by Wade Rowland
1-55263-031-5 $24.95 Trade paperback
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
Chosen as an "Indigo 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."
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."
"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, millennial world and what should be."
THE AUTHOR Wade Rowland is a long-time journalist who has worked for the Winnipeg Free Press, the Toronto Telegram and both national Canadian television networks: CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and the CTV Television Network. He writes and lectures extensively on the new media, and science and technology. He is the author of a dozen other books including his latest book, Galileo's Mistake, and Spirit of the Web, a popular history of communications technologies that was selected as Required Reading for 1997 by The Globe and Mail.He lives with his family near Port Hope, Ontario.
Read Author Profile page.
1-55263-031-5 $24.95 Trade paperback
Learn about Wade Rowland's latest book Galileo's Mistake
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