The End of Time [Hardcover]

David Horowitz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Beautifully written, unflinching in its contemplation of the abyss, and yet finally hopeful in its acceptance of human finitude." -- Stanley Fish, author of How Milton Works

"This book provides a window into the great divide in our world today." -- Natan Sharansky, author, Fear No Evil

"This is a poignant and powerful rumination on the meaning of life and the meaning of death." -- Walter Issacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

"While I have admired the moral courage of Horowitz, I would never have guessed the depths of his spiritual insight." -- Michael Novak, author of On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding

About the Author

David Horowitz is the author of Radical Son, The Politics of Bad Faith, Left Illusions, and other books. He is the President of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in Los Angeles, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 156 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books; 1 edition (June 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594030804
• ISBN-13: 978-1594030802
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #882,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

128 of 140 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Recognition of consequences is the beginning of wisdom.", July 5, 2005

By 

Bernard Chapin "Ora Et Labora!" (CHICAGO! USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The End of Time (Hardcover)

Two elements are always found in any work by David Horowitz: marvelous writing and unshakeable passion. The End of Time does not disappoint as it is a unique and valuable addition to his oeuvre. As is to be expected, erudition is intrinsic to his efforts. He cannot compose without educating as, despite its brevity, within can be found brilliant quotations and granules of wisdom from the finest minds in the western world. Of these, one by Dr. Johnson is perhaps my favorite, "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates the mind wonderfully."

Horowitz first got the idea for this reflective essay addressing life, death, and the totality of existence during air travel. He correctly points out that thoughts of death cross the mind of most every passenger as we ride and jerk above the clouds. A combination of 9/11 and being diagnosed with prostate cancer created a need for him to make sense of an indecipherable future. Impending death, if not due to cancer then to old age, conceptually has put him in the position we physically find him in upon the book's jacket cover. He wades alone at sea with no land or person to secure him. The figure we see is a shadowy composite who, like all the rest of us, ultimately stands alone.

The End of Time is not tightly structured which allows its narration to flow along many lines of inquiry. Horowitz discusses a variety of topics and subtopics. Religion, of course, is one of them. He is an agnostic who scrutinizes the Pensees of Pascal, but, ultimately, cannot agree with the philosopher's conclusions. Although it is to our benefit that he so fully elucidates the Frenchman's final observations.

His scholar's eye then fixes itself on cancer and the way in which it is treated today. Horowitz's experience with hospitalization and recovery illustrate just how non-exacting the science of medicine actually is. Different surgeons tell him different things, and before the prostrate operation commences there is cause to believe that his survival may come with the dear price of lost potency and continence. One is left, as far as health is concerned, with the same impression Somerset Maugham had about life, that the only thing with which to be certain is that there is precious little with which to be certain.

It's been said by several commentators that The End of Time is not a political work, but I disagree. It is not as overtly political as the rest of his publications, and certainly it is, for the most part, a book about human existence. However, even a reader who was not familiar with the author's opinions and positions, would have no question as to where his political allegiances lie. His arguments are unquestionably (and fortunately) conservative. Indeed, one could argue that a devoted attempt to ascertain what the future will bring is by definition a conservative trait; just as is the sentence, "Therefore recognition of consequences is the beginning of wisdom." Such a statement would be affirmed by nearly everyone on the right.

Horowitz equates Marxism with Islamofacism due to their both resulting from a distaste for life as it actually is. They are utopian fantasies which bear no relation to what is actually possible. Such an equivocation between Marx and our nation's most vile enemies is not something that the majority of leftists would readily accept. They often, even if they do not believe in communism, regard it as being a "lost cause" in pursuit of worthy and noble goals like "social justice," but millions met their deaths in a desire to contort humanity into a shape where theoretical doctrines could be met. The gulags created by communists were a logical outcome of ideas initially presented by Marx.

What is produced by radical belief is a permanent war of faith upon society and everybody else who might opposes their plans. There cannot be any middle ground. In the name of the dream, any slaughter or destruction can be justified. This is true regardless of from where the radicalism derives. As the author points out, the Marxism of his father and the fundamentalism of Mohammed Atta do not differ in their attitude toward non-believers.

His short character study of Atta is prescient and, after examining his history, we can better see how he could so easily have committed the evil acts he did. Atta's "morbid seriousness" is what qualified him to lead, and one cannot help but think of Maximilien Robespierre in such a context. Morbid seriousness is precisely what is characterologically essential to revolutionaries. Horowitz's observation that martyrs hate life more than they love death is quite astute.

Perhaps my favorite argument concerns the absurdity of utopian thinking as radicals believe that the world can be completely changed while most of us are not able to lose ten pounds. Such a comparison is admittedly mundane, but it is still an effective way to illustrate a profound truth as human beings are not infinitely malleable and never will be. Life is not an eternal May Day Parade. We spend our days severely challenged by the banal which, upon reflection, is not such a bad way to live.

57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Burns with Beautiful and Painful Intensity, August 8, 2005

By 

David Rolfe (Pasadena, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The End of Time (Hardcover)

David Horowitz, the notorious reformer and self-proclaimed agnostic, having survived a brush with death, struggles to make sense of life.

I don't often pick up books that threaten to contain a long lecture, but I tried this one and was gripped by the way Horowitz illuminates the outline of a greater truth as he makes poetic connections between history and philosophy and personal anecdotes. I'm recommending his book with my highest praise.

(I'm being precise when I say Horowitz "illuminates the outline"; the greater truth is far too big for us to perceive it with clarity. The collective wisdom of our lives leads us to seek as David Horowitz has done, but we remain uncertain. Horowitz approaches the Great Questions most appropriately, understanding on one hand why human life is meaningless without answers, while at the same time remaining painfully aware that the answers, if they exist at all, are beyond our grasp. The great paradox is created because we must seek that which we will never truly find. To fail to seek is to be less than fully human; to declare that one has uncovered the complete and ultimate truth is the mark of a dangerous fanatic, and evil is sure to follow.)

The book drew me in and compelled me to continue. While my eyes moved across the pages, I felt I was in the presence of something overwhelming. It's as if Horowitz is my guide, urging me ever-closer to the curtain behind which God Himself must reside. But somehow there remains a boundary that we cannot cross in life, and so we have no choice but to return unfulfilled to our routines.

Read the book. It's a brief journey that leads to an essential vantage.

P.S. It has been noted that this is not a political book, and that's an accurate statement, insofar as its subject matter doesn't touch on any contemporary political battles. You won't find here the names of presidents or candidates or mainstream parties. But there is, among other topics, exploration of the human quest for utopia/Eden. Horowitz considers both the religious and secular extreme visions (as exemplified in our modern world by radical Islamists on one hand or Communists on the other), and contemplates how we come to perpetrate hell on earth when we were so intent on delivering heaven. As a one-time radical whose idealistic dreams were shattered when a close friend was murdered by erstwhile allies (which he has written about elsewhere), this contemplation is part of Horowitz's long journey. He is not writing about what's wrong with "the other guy"; his comments are addressed to every human heart, most of all his own.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Just Another Great Read, June 28, 2005

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Contratimes (Harrisville, NH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of Time (Hardcover)

I started David Horowitz's "The End of Time" on Sunday night. It is Tuesday morning, early, and I've nearly finished the book a second time.

As other reviewers have shared, this is not a political book. It is much more than that. It reminds me a bit of the wonderful "A Grief Observed," by C.S.Lewis, his posthumously-published complaints (and praises) about life and God following the death (to cancer) of his wife. It also reminds me of the breath-taking "A Severe Mercy" by Sheldon Vanauken, which is perhaps the most romantic book ever written (and which also deals with dying). And it reminds me of the prophet Jeremiah.

For "The End of Time" is indeed plaintive, and yet full of glad resignation. It is indeed romantic, with death as the backdrop, as it unveils gems about Horowitz and his wife, April. And the work is prophetic, but not in the pop-culture idea of prophecy, fraught with dark augurings into the distant future. It is prophetic in connecting dots; in seeing outcomes that follow from faulty premises; from mistaken alliances with grand ideologies that intend to heal the world with revolutionary zeal, only to kill and maim like so much bad cancer surgery. For Horowitz, the problem with changing the world is not that the world doesn't need changing. The problem is that the human heart needs changing, and yet the heart is as unfathomable as any God. Broken people gathered together under a revolutionary banner do not make a whole humanity; they merely make a collection of broken people with a broken banner.

I am touched by Horowitz. There is a transparency that is touching; a candor that is refreshing. He is a man that is at ease with himself, and his inevitable fate. He looks at the abyss unflinchingly; he is not afraid. One can only appreciate his fortitude.

I, however, am afraid. So I share one small criticism of this otherwise lovely, beautifully written book. If a writer sets out to stare at death, examining the claims of after-life (albeit briefly), it behooves him or her to give some passing reference to the Christian claim of resurrection. I am sorry. But if Horowitz can allude to the Gospels (eg. "In my father's house there were no mansions"; a chapter titled "On Earth As It Is In Heaven"); then I expect some sort of interaction with the claims of Christ's resurrection. Nothing fancy, nothing too didactic mind you. Horowitz wrestles powerfully with other difficult ideas, concepts from other religions than his family's Judaism. Why not this one? Why so silent about the possibility that, if indeed there is a God who has overcome death, then death is not an end; that there IS something to greet you; that there IS some home to go to that is a real home; that dying is NOT something one does entirely alone? (I am not interested in Christianizing Mr. Horowitz, nor do I need the comforts of Christianity. But all one can say about a book of this high caliber, is that Mr. Horowitz's silence regarding Christianity is striking. Yes, he identifies with the Christian Pascal, but only in Pascal's more dire thoughts. There is hardly a mention - other than a description of Pascal's Wager - of WHY Pascal hoped in Christ.)

But none of this discounts the book, really. This is a great reflection on anxiety, dying, hope, faith. It is a love story, simply told, ungratuitously. It is a powerful polemic against religious extremism (his chapter on revolutionary zeal and Islamic terrorism is incredibly potent). It is a worthy read. Very worthy.