A Very Brief History of Eternity

by Eire, Carlos

• ISBN13: 9780691152509
• ISBN10: 0691152500
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-09-06
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

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?InA Very Brief History of Eternity, Carlos Eire, the historian and National Book Award-winning author ofWaiting 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 Eternityis 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.

Author Biography

Carlos Eire author of the memoirs Waiting for Snow in Havana, which won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2003, and Learning to Die in Miami. His other books include War Against the Idols and From Madrid to Purgatory. He is the Riggs Professor of History and Religious. Studies at Yale University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Big Bang, Big Sleep, Big Problem	p. 1
Eternity Conceived	p. 28
Eternity Overflowing	p. 67
Eternity Reformed	p. 100
From Eternity to Five-Year Plans	p. 157
Not Here, Not Now, Not Ever	p. 220
	p. 229
Notes	p. 233
Eternity A Basic Bibliography	p. 255
Index	p. 259
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