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Paul R. Ehrlich and Robert E. Ornstein's Humanity on a Tightrope : thoughts on empathy, family and big changes for a viable future Reviewed By Vibha Sharma of Bookpleasures.com
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Vibha Sharma

Reviewer Vibha Sharma: Vibha is from Bangalore, India. She is a software engineer and a management graduate by profession but is now a stay-at-home mother of two children. The passion to read and write brought her to the blogging world. Vibha has two blogs - one devoted to book reviews - Literary Sojourn and Literary Siesta (Short Stories For Children), where she posts short moral stories for young children.






 
By Vibha Sharma
Published on February 4, 2011
 


Authors : Paul R. Ehrlich and Robert E. Ornstein
ISBN : 978-1-4422-0648-9
 
Through Humanity on a Tightrope, two award winning authors - Paul Ehrlich and Robert Ornstein undertake the task of bringing a unique perspective to the global problems that our species is facing - the tightrope that we need to walk from humanity's past to the future.


Authors : Paul R. Ehrlich and Robert E. Ornstein
ISBN : 978-1-4422-0648-9

Click Here To Purchase Humanity on a Tightrope: Thoughts on Empathy, Family, and Big Changes for a Viable Future
 
Through Humanity on a Tightrope, two award winning authors - Paul Ehrlich and Robert Ornstein undertake the task of bringing a unique perspective to the global problems that our species is facing - the tightrope that we need to walk from humanity's past to the future. They begin by enumerating the endless troubles we need to deal with and much more gruesome future that is in store for us if nothing is modified - the increasing natural imbalance, climate changes, unmanageable human population and the impact of these in the form of - depleting natural resources, many species becoming endangered, terrorism, insecurity, nuclear proliferation, and much more. We have reached a point where 'our species is endangering its own life-support system and the infrastructure of the rest of the world.'
 
The well analyzed study of the fundamental problems of homo sapiens due to premature birth patterns and the reasons for the formation of family setup are very neatly presented. This tendency of humans forms the basis of how and why we consider just a few members of the species as part of our family. The stern definitions of 'us' and 'them' based on every possible reasons be it color, class, caste, religion, country have led to many horrific times in the history of our species. But now in order to bridge the gap between 'us' and 'them', the 'family' entity needs to be redefined making it more open, broader and generalized. The feelings of empathy and semblance is to be cultivated and are extremely important in order to avert the collapsing civilization. It is high time that we educate ourselves with the basics of empathy that we have lost while being focused on catering to our individual needs. We all need to renew our knowledge of this one indispensable trait which can help all of us in thinking about our common life-planet. 
 
This compact writing is based on science, information and knowledge and the two authors have analyzed the same in such a brilliant manner so as to present the whole intelligence in a palatable, chewable and digestible form. It is very thought provoking, sincere attempt by the authors towards building a global family. The lectures are very well supported by appropriate case studies and anecdotes from the past to further the points that are to be made. They have made use of the findings from varied fields and streams such as evolution, biology, anthropology, psychology and sociology, to name just a few. However, at some points the explanation of situations seemed a little inadequate while on some occasions the findings felt repetitive which could have been intentional to reiterate the same point from different perspectives.

Click Here To Purchase Humanity on a Tightrope: Thoughts on Empathy, Family, and Big Changes for a Viable Future