Review: NONZERO by Robert Wright

A belated review of Non-zero

I have earlier criticized non-zero while reading it for its cumbersome treatment of a seminal topic towards the end. i still stand by my critique, but i wish to add a complete review, so that one may forgo the deviations and focus on the uniqueness of the subject at hand.

The author tries to show us that the world moves forward because it wants to propogate itself & exist, and for the same reason it forms positive sum relationships within and around itself. While i am still musing on the relationships that we have built with nature in the last couple of centuries, and i still stand unconvinced of the conclusions of the book as yet, i believe that it provides us with important insights on the history and development of the world. This development, charted earlier in human terms and later in pure biological terms, provides us insight into the complex social processes and the psyche behind them with logical explanations which are based on painstaking research.

I would read this book like a compilation rather than an authorative work, somewhat like reading a novel by Michael Crichton where one is introduced to a fairly new topic and taken through it in form of a story. While the research that goes into such a compilation is worthy of admiration, the result may not necessarily be what the truth is, or what may sound like a convincing theme. But it should be read as a new way of looking at the world and understanding it.

Moving on, the book does jump from one section to another while losing touch, but for an experienced reader, who can support it with his or her own research, done either on the internet or reading another similar work along with it, the book opens new vistas.

I had the unique opportunity (since it dragged on towards the end) of reading it with Yuganta (a commentary on the social life during Mahabharata), with Cat o' nine tales (crime stories by Jeffery Archer), with Guns, Germs & Steel (a Pulitzer winning document about the history of humans in last 10,000 years), with Emotional Intelligence (which explores the social traits as compared to raw intelligence).

I found that the book had much to support for and argue against all these works. It told me about the psychology behind them, the logic for the history, culture & social customs, and also about the human mind and body.

So while i wouldnt ask you to read this book by itself, i would ask you to read it with a companion book and then use it to reflect on the happenings. Like my experiment, you may even use a novel to do the same and arrive with results that actually overwhelm you about the relationships of characters and the environment or context of the novel.

I wish you happy reading, and feel free to throw it away towards the end when it starts to drag.... it will not serve much purpose anyway...