Transforming History: A Curriculum for Cultural Evolution

Thompson (At the Edge of History), a curriculum designer and faculty consultant for Ross School in New York and an early 1970s consciousness guru, has written an ambitious, dense, and difficult-to-comprehend curriculum designed to carry home-schooled children from kindergarten through the 11th grade. Based on an in-depth liberal arts focus that would challenge most college students, Thompson's curriculum requires his youngsters to develop an understanding of works ranging from Gilgamesh to The Crying of Lot 49. Some real jewels, namely, the account of his own education, are buried under an avalanche of jargon and confusion as he tries to explain his interdisciplinary worldview and approach to schooling. A typical phrasing: "A cultural-ecologyeis a tissue of simultaneities of organisms playing out a similar adaptive approach in different demes, different biomes." Huh? Recommended only for major university libraries. A.O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.