Wandering God

The third book in Morris Berman's trilogy on the evolution of human consciousness, Wandering God continues his earlier work. Here, in a discussion of our hunter-gatherer ancestry and the "paradoxical" mode of perception that it involved, Berman shows how a sense of alertness, or secular/sacred immediacy, subsequently got buried by the rise of sedentary civilization, religion, and vertical power relationships." "Wandering God explores the meaning of Paleolithic art, the origins of social inequality, the nature of cross-cultural child rearing, the relationship between women and agriculture, and the world view of present-day nomadic peoples, as well as the emergence of "paradoxical" consciousness in the philosophical writings of the twentieth century.

Booknews

In the conclusion to his trilogy on the evolution of human consciousness, Berman (Johns Hopkins U.) discusses human hunter- gatherer ancestry and the paradoxical mode of perception that it involved, showing how a sense of alertness, or secular/sacred immediacy, subsequently got buried beneath sedentary civilization, religion, and vertical power relationships. He explores the meaning of Paleolithic art, the origins of social inequality, the nature of cross-cultural child rearing, the relationship between women and agriculture, the world view of present day nomadic peoples, and the emergence of paradoxical consciousness in 20th-century philosophy. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Morris Berman

Morris Berman is a cultural historian and the author of The Twilight of American Culture. He has held a number of university appointments, most recently as Visiting Professor of Sociology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.