Ishmael
novels of spiritual adventure ever published, Ishmael has earned a passionate following. This special twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a new foreword and afterword by the author. “A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet... laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny.”—The New York Times Book Review Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person. It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime. So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. It is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorilla—a journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankind’s place in it. In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanity’s origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves? Explore Daniel Quinn’s spiritual Ishmael trilogy: ISHMAEL • MY ISHMAEL • THE STORY OF B Praise for Ishmael “As suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year.”—The Austin Chronicle “Before we’re halfway through this slim book...
Stats for nerds
48recommend
79mentions
65people
2009–2026years
76% recommend22% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- There’s this really quirky and interesting book on this topic, called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
Basically this (totalitarian agriculture genociding alternative cultures) has happened everywhere and his thesis is that the total extermination aspect in particular is a novel aspect of farming culture, which did not exist for hunter-gatherers or herders. Not that violence didn’t exist, but exterminating violence was very rare.
He also connects it to the founding myths of Adam and Eve (who are cursed to practice agriculture, instead of being hunter-gatherers, and who believe they have the power of good and evil to know what plants and animals should live and which should die), and Cain (who sacrifices wheat, representing agriculture and land ownership) and Abel (who sacrifices a goat, representing a herding lifestyle).
If that sounds at all interesting to you should totally read it, it’s a really clever book!
- No one has mentioned Ishmael from Daniel Quinn, where they theorize how modern culture is a cult (has it's own mythology) ingrained to hate or antagonize indigenous cultures, and how even our founding stories (Adam and Eve) are probably adapted from earlier stories from indigenous peoples.
- I’ve been working towards my WSET diploma so not much non-wine related fun reading. That being said:
- Phylloxera: How Wine was Saved for the world by Christy Campbell is a surprisingly fun read on how the entire wine industry was almost destroyed in the late 19th century. - Red/Green/Blue Mars by K. S. Robinson hard sci-fi about mars colonization and terraforming. First rereading in 20 years or so. Holds up extremely well. - Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. A thought provoking take on how broad stroke human history developed since the Bronze Age. - Stop posting on HN and go read "Ishmael" if this is how you feel. 100% serious, no snark.
- Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.
One of the few books where you look so differently at the world after reading it that you literally feel like a different person.
- Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
> the world doesn't belong to man, man belongs to the world.
and
The Little Book of Humanism
