Dreams Of The Millennium: Report From a Culture on the Brink - Softcover

Kingwell, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140283080 ISBN 13: 9780140283082

Publisher: Penguin Canada, 1999

Synopsis

In this brilliantly conceived exploration of doomsaying and revelation, Mark Kingwell argues that the brink tendencies manifested by contemporary popular culture—the popularity of body piercing, for example, or the proliferation of miracles—are, in fact, inextricably linked to the impending fin de siècle.

One of Maclean's top ten non-fiction books of 1996

About this title

About the Author:

Philosopher and critic Mark Kingwell is the author of more than ten books, including the national bestsellers Better Living and The World We Want. A professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, his scholarly work has appeared in many leading journals, including the Journal of Philosophy, Political Theory, and the Harvard Design Magazine. He is also a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine and a regular contributor to Adbusters, the National Post, and the Globe and Mail. He has won many awards for his writing, including the National Magazine Award for both essays and columns. Classic Cocktails is based on his award-winning cocktail column, which appears in the men’s magazine Toro.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A quick, entertaining, often flippant guide to the zeitgeist. Kingwell (Philosophy/Univ. of Toronto) is interested in everything--``high'' and ``low'' culture alike. Thinkers and trends he covers range from the political theorist Michael Lind to the ``new'' leadership-training programs in business, from the apocalyptic environmental philosopher Thomas Homer-Dixon to an exhibition by psychics. Along the way, he offers some very interesting and at times witty observations, as in his pungent comment concerning leadership-studies guru Warren Bennis: ``His lessons are hoary with age yet presented with an air of breathless discovery.'' Unfortunately, Kingwell often flits from topic to topic, sometimes dealing with phenomena that seem to have little, if anything, to do with the coming millennium, e.g., a syndrome in which visitors to Jerusalem have messianic delusions. He is also prone to some silly generalizations. And while he has a refreshingly breezy journalistic style, Kingwell sometimes lapses into academic pretentiousness, such as describing tattooing (!) as ``perhaps the one remaining utopian gesture.'' Finally, despite his frequent tone of world-weary irony, he seems too eager to assign a host of phenomena to end-of-millennium yearning or anxiety, and to engage in reckless prophesying: ``We can anticipate scenes of mass hysteria and terror'' as the millennium approaches. Kingwell's jaundiced perspective may be traceable to his focus on thinkers who specialize in ``ivory tower'' theorizing or who reside at the cultural margins. While this makes for a great deal of eye-opening material, something essential seems missing: the hopes and anxieties of many in the Western world's middle class. These seem far more focused on diurnal family and economic issues than on the almost mythic third millennium, whose contours are still less clearly discernible than Kingwell thinks. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Canada
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0140283080
• ISBN 13: 9780140283082
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384