{"product_id":"immortalization-commission-9780374533236","title":"Immortalization Commission","description":"\u003cp\u003eA \u003ci\u003eGlobe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e Best Books of the Year 2011 Title\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the heart of human experience lies an obsession with the nature of death. Religion, for most of history, has provided an explanation for human life and a vision of what comes after it. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such beliefs came under relentless pressure as new ideas--from psychiatry to evolution to communism--seemed to suggest that our fate was now in our own hands: humans could cease to be animals, defeat death, and become immortal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Immortalization Commission\u003c\/i\u003e, the acclaimed political philosopher and critic John Gray takes a brilliant and frightening look at humankind's dangerous striving toward a scientific version of immortality. Probing the parallel faiths of Bolshevik \"God-builders,\" who sought to reshape the planet and psychical researchers, who believed they had evidence of a nonreligious form of life after death, Gray raises fascinating questions about how such beliefs threaten the very nature of what it means to be human. He looks to philosophers, journalists, politicians, charlatans, and mass murderers who all felt driven by a specifically scientific and modern worldview and whose revolt against death resulted in a series of experiments that ravaged whole countries. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn urgent examination of Darwin's post-religious legacy\u003ci\u003e, The Immortalization Commission \u003c\/i\u003eis an important work from \"one of Britain's leading public intellectuals\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e St. Martins Press-3PL\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/10\/2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780374533236\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.52lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.44h x 4.81w x 0.76d","brand":"John Gray","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42547766329525,"sku":"9780374533236","price":19.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_181ef411-3278-4710-983c-bd00111e2c1e.jpg?v=1670336853","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/immortalization-commission-9780374533236","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}