The Seekers: The Story of Mans
Continuing Quest to Understand His
World by Daniel J. Boorstin
Magesterial Historian Of Science
Renowned historian Daniel J. Boorstin completes the trilogy he began with
The Discoverers and The Creators. The first volume covered explorers,
scientists, and historians in their quest for raw knowledge, while the
second book describes writers, painters, and composers in their pursuit of
inspiring art; The Seekers describes people searching for an
understanding of human existence--Man is the asking animal, notes
Boorstin. Its a big, bold theme, and although The Seekers is the shortest
work in the trilogy, its still vintage Boorstin: incredibly learned, richly
anecdotal, and casually profound. It begins with the prophets of the Holy
Land and the philosophers of ancient Greece, continues through the
Renaissance, and concludes with the modern era of the social sciences.
In this long quest [for understanding], Western culture has turned from
seeking the end or purpose to seeking causes--from the Why to the How,
writes Boorstin. Thats a neat summary of Western intellectual

development over several thousand years. What other author could put it
so succinctly? Boorstin is generally stronger with material that is more
recent and more secular, but this is an accomplished book and a worthy
capstone to an outstanding three-volume effort. --John J. Miller
Personal Review: The Seekers: The Story of Mans Continuing
Quest to Understand His World by Daniel J. Boorstin
This books completes the excellent trilogy by Boorstin on the adventure of
knowledge. "The Creators" tells us the saga of imagination and creativity.
"The Discoverers" tells the story of curiosity and the thirst for adventure,
the eagerness to know. And "The Seekers" talks about Man's permanent
struggle to understand his world. Religion and philosophy have tried to find
definitive answers to basic questions. As in his other books, this one is
written with the easiness and amenity characteristic of Boorstin, mixing
explanation of the thinkers' philosophy with brief recounts of their lives and
temperaments. The anechdotical matters, since the book's subject is not
so much theories as persons. The cast of characters is fascinating. It
begins with myth, with the Biblical Moses, Isaiah, and Job. In talking about
the latter, he addresses the fundamental question: why do bad things
happen to good people?
Then he makes a brief stop to explain the fundamental difference between
"Western" and "Eastern" religions: the former separate Good from Evil,
while the latter incorporate both as essential components of the world.
Necessarily, the monotheist goes crazy trying to explain Evil. Polytheists
do something else. Then come the three great Greeks, possibly the first
truly free men. Another reviewer here is right when he says that the most
dangerous people are those who claim to have find final answers, the
fanatics. Socrates fought them, Plato tried to join with them (and produced
enormous harm with his theories, from where even Marxism comes), and
Aristotle returned to common sense with his Realistic philosophy. Then
comes Christianism, with its intellectual contributions, like monastery and
university, but also with its chains around freedom of thought (not to talk
about freedom of expression). The Reformation and its heroes. The
discovery of History by Herodotus and Thucydides. The Utopians; Bacon;
Descartes and the discovery of the Self as the unity of the world.
Machiavelli, Locke, Voltaire, Jefferson, and Rousseau (the most harmful
and repellent thinker in history), side by side with Hegel and Marx. Culture
above Nation: Spengler and Toynbee. Carlyle and the Heroes.
Kierkegaard's Existentialism. William James's Stream of Consciousness,
and finally Acton, Malraux, Bergson and Einstein. This book is a delight in
learning.
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