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A
Study of History and
Evolution
World
History
And The Eonic Effect
Civilization, Darwinism,
and Theories of Evolution
Fourth Edition
By
John Landon
The Third Edition of WH&EE has been
extensively rewritten, with a host of new topics and material. The text provides a good way to study world history, and is
really three subbooks in one, with three outlines of world history, built around
'an idea for an historical database', as a new method to organize research.
Using a hybrid of systems theory and the philosophy of history, the text creates
a new kind of historical model, in the process throwing light on the issues of
the Darwin debate, evolution, and the descent of man. The principal issues dealt
with are:
-
The discovery of the eonic effect, the
evidence of non-random evolution in history. This also provides a detailed
look at the question of the Axial Age, and a new way to interpret its
significance.
-
A critique of Darwin's theory of
natural selection, with a critical review of the current confusion over
Intelligent design. We can adopt a Kantian strategy to steer us through
the metaphysics of evolution.
-
Scientific methodology, the problems
of reductionism, biology and ethics, and the hidden ideologies of
evolutionary theory
-
Construction of an eonic model, using
simple periodization, to formulate the idea of the Great Transition, and
to clarify the relation of history and evolution. A look at the Great
Explosion in the Paleolithic suggests a photo finish critique of
Darwinism.
-
The contradictions of Big History/Flat
History involve the issues of historicism, historical inevitability, and
the question of a Science of History, given the paradoxes of
causality/freedom.
-
This leads to a connection with the
classic philosophy of history seen in the works of Kant, and his thinking
on the Third Antinomy provides the key to our new model's success.
-
This leads to a way to see the
'evolution of freedom' as a key construct for historical analysis, and we
can use this to examine the 'discrete freedom sequence' seen in the
enigmatic emergence of democracy in the eonic pattern.
-
Armed with a new model, we proceed to
three separate outlines of world history, with a close discussion of the
rise of the modern, postmodernism, the Enlightenment, the Great Divide,
the Scientific Revolution, theories of economics, globalization,
Eurocentrism, ideologies of revolution, the Hegelian End of
History.
-
A new approach to the fundamental unit
of historical analysis allows us to approach world history at a deeper
level than the 'civilization', and we can produce a unified treatment of
the evolution of the State, religion, and general culture.
-
The eonic effect provides the key to
unlocking the riddle of the Old Testament, which is a concealed discovery
of the Axial Age context of the Biblical sagas. Beyond this the model
gives us a way to reconsider the 'evolution of religion', especially the
Buddhist, and monotheistic, religions.
The result is an elegant solution to the
problems and dilemmas of historical theory, the ideologies of evolution, and
paradoxes of a science of history.
First Edition cited in History and Theory, February
2001
Booknotes:
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication
(Provided by Quality Books, Inc.)
Landon, John C., 1945-
World history and the eonic effect : civilization,
Darwinism,
and theories of evolution / John C. Landon.
-- 4th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
LCCN 2010903319
ISBN-13: 978-1-4500-6023-3 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-4500-6023-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4500-6024-0 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-4500-6024-2 (hardcover)
1. Social evolution. 2.
History--Periodization.
3.
Human evolution. 4. Evolution
(Biology)--Religious
aspects.
5. Civilization. I.
Title.
HM626.L36
2010
303.4'01
QBI10-600081
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