1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910456474603321

Autore

Eire Carlos M. N

Titolo

A very brief history of eternity [[electronic resource] /] / Carlos Eire

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, : Princeton University Press, c2010

ISBN

1-282-45855-8

9786612458552

1-4008-3187-3

Edizione

[Course Book]

Descrizione fisica

xv, 268 p. : ill

Disciplina

236/.21

Soggetti

Eternity - History of doctrines

Civilization, Western

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- I. Big Bang, Big Sleep, Big Problem -- II. Eternity Conceived -- III. Eternity Overflowing -- IV. Eternity Reformed -- V. From Eternity to Five-Year Plans -- VI. Not Here, Not Now, Not Ever -- Appendix: Common Conceptions of Eternity -- Notes -- Eternity: A Basic Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

What is eternity? Is it anything other than a purely abstract concept, totally unrelated to our lives? A mere hope? A frightfully uncertain horizon? Or is it a certainty, shared by priest and scientist alike, and an essential element in all human relations? In A Very Brief History of Eternity, Carlos Eire, the historian and National Book Award-winning author of Waiting for Snow in Havana, has written a brilliant history of eternity in Western culture. Tracing the idea from ancient times to the present, Eire examines the rise and fall of five different conceptions of eternity, exploring how they developed and how they have helped shape individual and collective self-understanding. A book about lived beliefs and their relationship to social and political realities, A Very Brief History of Eternity is also about unbelief, and the tangled and often rancorous relation between faith and reason. Its subject is the largest subject of all, one that has taxed minds great and small for



centuries, and will forever be of human interest, intellectually, spiritually, and viscerally.