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Summary: This book will change the way you look at things
Review: While you may not agree with everything that the 'teacher' says in this book, I promise that it will change the way you think about things. There are amazing but simple points that are made in this book and Daniel Quinn's writing style keeps you interested until the end. You will greatly enjoy this book.
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Summary: Before and after Ishmael
Review: It may be a cliche, but there was my life before I read Ishmael and my life after I read Ishmael. It unlocked my brain like nothing else in this world ever has. Not only does Quinn postulate interesting theories on the stories of humanity and civilization, but more importantly, he teaches us to question the most basic "facts" in our lives. He is certainly much more than an author, he is a philosopher who is able to connect to everyday people, which is truly a gift.Do yourself a favor and read Ishmael. It doesn't matter whether you agree with his theories on civilization and history, what matters is his method of questioning that leads toward independent thought. And if you love the book, buy a copy or two and give to your friends!
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Summary: Thought Provoking
Review: This is one of the most thought provoking books I've read in a long time. Somehow I didn't even have to pause over the fact that the message in this story is being told by a gorilla.
I've taken a couple anthropology classes, so the question of "how things came to be this way" has come up many times. I think Daniel Quinn gives some interesting answers. Some of them I've heard before, and some I never thought of in the way he put it. I think this is a very important book. It not only tells how to make this world a better place it inspired an entire Pearl Jam album(Yield)! Listen to their song Do The Evolution and you'll get it.
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Summary: Man is a part of nature, not above it
Review: Mr. Quinn's thought-provoking opus can easily, and incorrectly, be misconstrued as an ultra liberal look at the world around us. But this book is NOT a call for tree-hugging nor saving the whales nor any other distinctly direct environmental action. Rather the book wants the reader to change his entire axis of thinking. Through an ingenious device of a talking gorilla (symbolism is rich) named Ishmael, the reader goes on an analytical journey as the gorilla challenges the life-long beliefs of the other main character in the book. Ishmael challenges the reader to try and understand man's place as a member of the environment rather than its ruler. Ishmael speculates that man as a species is in a downward spiral because Man refuses to cooperate with Nature. While you may not agree with the ideas presented in the book (especially if you are a believer that technology will solve all society's ills), the ideas must be acknowledged as reasonable. Ishmael states that nature has its way of balancing a population of a species and humans are attempting to circumvent this balancing act. For example, if humans produce excessive food, a population will grow to meet that supply. That is just way of nature and while humans are a sentient species, we are still animals and part of the world order of Nature. Such ideas that we are all a part of nature and so on are nothing new but what makes Quinn's book stand out is that it tries to use logic and reasoning to reach conclusions, rather than emotion.
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Summary: uma licao de vida...
Review: leitura obrigatoria pra quem tem o minimo de consciencia e curiosidade sobre nosso papel no planeta.
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Summary: A Whole New World
Review: I first read 'Ishmael' about 2 years ago on a friend's recommendation. At first reading, the book most certainly did not change my life... what it offered to me was a new way of looking at how we live our lives today AND how things came to be this way. Exciting but hardly life changing material, huh? But it did exactly what Daniel Quinn intended as its objective... it raised several disturbing questions in my mind about the way I was living my life at the time. What REALLY changed my life were all the stimulating discussions I then had with other friends who had read it and all the follow up research I did on my own on subjects like anthropology, history, culture, population growth, public governance, ecology, religion which I had earlier considered too esoteric. As I got more and more deeply involved in my research, I began to see the extremely strong connections that exist between something as seemingly diverse as ecology and governance. While Quinn's arguments are often rejected because of their apparent simplicity, I feel that that this is one of the strongest points of his book. It takes courage and genius to be able to help people see the essence of a thing without covering it up with often unnecessary jargon. A lot of people will believe anything if someone who calls himself an expert says it and if sufficiently difficult words are used in expressing an idea. For those who need footnotes that explain everything, here is a great opportunity to learn to ask the 'right' questions. The answers are available for those who are looking. Quinn does a great job of provoking us into thinking for ourselves... something our current education systems can't boast of. I strongly believe that the merit of the book lies in this fact and not in its form though I couldn't find any problems with the way the ideas were presented. You can choose to accept it or reject it but one of the biggest mistakes you could make is to ignore it.
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Summary: What Does He Want?
Review: When I first read this book I had the same reaction that most of the people on here did as well as a few people I know. But really looking back this book seems like a bunch of nothing. Quinn is obviously a gifted writer to be able to create such beautiful and romatisised ideals of tribal life and the "good old days" which in all likelyhood never existed. This is very much a new "hippy" sort of psuedo-philosophical thing. Quinn's ideas are underlined with this delusion of a perfect world modern man has mucked up. This is not a new idea and not true in my opinion. Quinn over-simplifies human progression, and yes I believe there is a progression. Although there are many problems in the modern world there is very little room for fairness and justice in tribal rule. Just becuase some group of people somewhere do so something and it works for a long time make it right. Most importantly, Quinn leaves no room for idividual rights. To make a long story short: I'd warn anyone about getting too involved and go overboard with this house of cards (as I've seen others do.) Whenever you read one of these self-help/psuedo-philosophisers I always make sure to ask at teh end "what do they want?" What does Quinn want seeing how he seems to see this as more than just a book about an ape? I have no idea. He's said nothing very well.
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Summary: Whoah
Review: Quite simply, this book changed my life and helped me see truth more than I ever thought a book could. Daniel Quinn has everything so right on, and he will make you understand how the world really is, if you're not too selfish and shortsighted to accept it. I would recommend this book to everyone on the face of the planet.
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Summary: A lonely new perspective
Review: There is a certain mindset one must have to read and benefit from Ishmael. It probably stems from environmentalism or liberalism, or a general dissatisfaction with human culture as we know it. This is not a good read for economics majors or powerful corporate zombies. The main criticism i found was that the narrator, through the series of socratic dialogues, is simply led along, offering resistence to Ishmael's view of humanity. Aside from that, one has to deal with walking around with this special knowledge and feeling sort of isolated from others, who are still "enacting the Taker story." Ishmael actually warns the narrator early on of the effect the book (conversations) will have. I've recommended this book to almost everyone I know. It's good.
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Summary: Dreadfully written, philisophically ignorant, and unoriginal
Review: "Ishmael"is the tale of a telepathic gorilla who instructs a young man in how to save humanity- a plot device that by itself should scare away most intelligent readers. Through a series of turgid dialogues that would make Socrates willingly take hemlock and ask for seconds, "Ishmael" lectures his student on the evils of modern society and outlines a naiive neo-Ricaridan utopia not unlike many failed utopias of the past. Ishmael is not just your typical bad new-age rant; it is transcendentally bad. It brings bad to a new level. Not surprisingly, it has gathered a following of earnest and shallow people who think it a brilliant work of philosophy. Like may such books with a cultish following, "Ishmael" couches it old ideas and trivial insights in a special language, so that initiates can talk about "takers" and "leavers" while deluding themselves into thinking they're actually discussing original ideas. But even as simple as the ideas presented are, they're still wrong. Quinn has little or no understanding of economics, and the simplest insights escape him. He doesn't realize, for example, that wealth is not a fixed commodity in the world; he's got little more than a 17th-century mercantilist understanding of the world. His philisophical insights are equally shallow, and can be summarized as "people should be considerate of others". Well, true, but luckily most of us learned that without having to read third-rate books like this. Dreadful on every count. No stars.
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