A Very Brief History of Eternity [Hardcover]

Carlos Eire (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2009

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?

In A Very Brief History of Eternity, Carlos Eire, the historian and National Book Award-winning author of Waiting 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 Eternity is 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Readers of Eire's award-winning memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana, won't be surprised by the tongue-in-cheek title of the Yale history professor's latest book. Despite its heady topic, Eire's engaging style and sense of humor keep things light enough to carry readers through a history of how conceptions of forever, or eternity, have evolved in Western culture, and what role these conceptions have played in shaping our own self-understanding, personally and collectively. Beginning in the ancient cradle of civilization and ending with the postmodern present, the author addresses both religious and secular notions of eternity in the context of how people throughout time have treated such mysteries and conundrums as what happens after death and the relationship of time to space. Diagrams, photos and artistic representations accompanied by Eire's commentary illustrate difficult concepts or provide visual representation of how people have conceived of eternity in reincarnation, mystical experience, heaven and enduring truth. Eire gives readers so much to think about and in such an entertaining manner that he can be excused for occasionally overreaching. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* It troubles Eire that this book—along with every other earthly trace of our species—must finally vanish when an aging sun vaporizes the planet’s oceans and burns away the atmosphere. His unease—as he recognizes—betrays a secular mind that cannot believe in an eternal God. Not that Eire lacks interest in thinkers who do believe in an everlasting deity. He explores the time-defying beliefs of the Hebrew prophets, the Apostle Paul, and St. Augustine, tracing the way early Church fathers integrate scriptural teachings with the time-defying philosophy of Parmenides and Plato. This synthesis, readers learn, offers not only understanding of how the dead fare in eternity but also hope of improving their state through memorial masses. Beginning with the Protestant repudiation of such masses, Eire identifies a decisive cultural shift, as mortals lose their connection with souls in eternity. Protestantism thus paves the way for modernism’s thoroughgoing rejection of the eternal. For some modernists—such as Freud—secularism’s complete vulnerability to time has made every moment more intense, more precious. But in the frenetic pleasure-seeking of modern hedonists and the zealous crusading of utopian activists, Eire discerns desperate attempts to fill the cultural gap left when eternity disappeared. A profound and unsettling inquiry. --Bryce Christensen

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; First Edition edition (October 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691133573
• ISBN-13: 978-0691133577
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #523,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a layman reads about the history of eternity, December 14, 2009

By 

honey "honey" (philadelphia, pa) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Very Brief History of Eternity (Hardcover)

This is not a theological book, but a history book by a beautiful, dare I say heavenly, writer who happens to be a brilliant historian as well.
Professor Eire presents information about how people defined eternity throughout history to help them cope with the awful thought that everyone must die. For a subject we often prefer to avoid thinking about nowadays, we learn even as we occasionally smile at some lovely phrases or personal insights and I even laughed out loud at some ideas. Professor Eire is that rare educator who is kind to his readers. I highly recommend this book both for its information and its pleasant to read style.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book in every way, March 13, 2010

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B. Brown "Buffinator" (Madison, WI USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Very Brief History of Eternity (Hardcover)

This book is brilliantly written in an easy-to-read but amazingly erudite fashion. The author captures profound insights of religious figures, mostly Christian, and explains them in language that is very easy to read and understand. I have studied my Christian faith all my life but this book is the best I've read at pulling all the disparate views of this core doctrine into one coherent explanation of its historical development. It was hard to put this book down, not a comment often heard about a book on this topic.

No matter your faith or lack of one, this book will help you to better understand how the notion of eternal life has profoundly affected human societies around the world.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lively and sophisticated history, September 4, 2010

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J. L. Garrett (Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Very Brief History of Eternity (Hardcover)

This book is a good presentation of the history of the idea of eternity. An exposition about the ancient belief systems of Plato, Aristotle, and the Israelites follows the introduction. (This chapter is the most technical). From there the idea of eternity is followed as it passes though Catholic Europe, the Reformation, and into the present modern/postmodern world. The work is informative throughout, but in the later chapters, the author's humor and personality comes through with much more strength. The final two chapters become rather gloomy, but humor keeps them very readable. I enjoyed reading this book.