See all 3 questions about The Kingdom of Speech…, The Millions' Most Anticipated, Too: The Great Second-Half 2016 Nonfiction Book Preview. [10], John McWhorter observed in his Vox review that Wolfe revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the Chomsky-Everett controversy, and concluded that the author "ultimately misses the essence of the debate from various angles." He shows that Chuck D himself felt it then, and how Chomsky grants it today. The maestro storyteller and reporter provocatively argues that what we think we know about speech and human evolution is wrong. (I mean, these gods are worshipped so devotedly so as to make you ill). The maestro storyteller and reporter provocatively argues that what we think we know about speech and human evolution is wrong. THE KINGDOM OF SPEECH is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech --- not evolution --- is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. This book is different in that Wolfe has ventured into scientific theory - or actually, holy writ, i.e. With that said, I was happy to find that I had not yet read all of Wolfe's non-fiction (thanks to. August 30th 2016 Wolfe examines the solemn, long-faced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in the Kingdom of Speech. Others are the fault of the field for having been unsuccessful in making itself understandable to the public." Despite the fairly copious footnotes, there was little evidence that Wolfe's understanding of either evolution or linguistics had any depth. [7] While Everett himself has said Wolfe's book is "the opinion of someone who has looked carefully at the field for years. Depending on how much Wolfe's writing style irritates you, most of this book is a readable but disjointed and superficial narrative trying but mostly failing to connect two largely separate fields. The Kingdom of Speech, by Tom Wolfe (Little, Brown, 192 pp., $26) T om Wolfe, one of our best novelists and essayists, is also a critic of the Darwinian theory of evolution. The style sticks to the middle ground between journalism and the best, most entertaining fiction. Remember that scientific theories are coherent statements of verified, measured and replicated facts that are related in an effort to find out how things work. In his new book The Kingdom of Speech, Tom Wolfe argues that speech and not evolution is responsible for the many achievements of humans.Wolfe, the author of The Right Stuff and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, went on NPR the other day to talk about the book. In The Kingdom of Speech, Wolfe makes the captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech—not evolution—is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. Guy Deutscher's Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages attempts to convince us of what the book advertises right there in its subtitle. I'd forgotten what a rambunctious, eloquent, mentally-arresting writer Tom Wolfe is. I normally enjoy Tom Wolfe, but this takedown of modern linguistics is simply a rant. "Before Tom Wolfe was a bestselling novelist, he was a groundbreaking journalist. In The Kingdom of Speech, Wolfe makes the captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech—not evolution—is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. Very fun. In the book, Wolfe criticises Darwin and his colleagues for taking partial credit from Alfred Wallace for the theory of evolution and ignoring Wallace's later work on the theory. The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech -- not evolution -- is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. (Although Everett has also tweeted that "Chomsky's view of [language] origins is nearly identical to Wolfe's view of evol[ution]. THE KINGDOM OF SPEECH is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech--not evolution--is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. I loved that Tom Wolfe and I am happy he has returned. Today, of course, evolution is observed in real time in the laboratory, among microbes or insects. Slaughters holy scientific cows left, right and center. He also used way too many ellipses and said "solar plexus" an unreasonable number of times in such a short book. A provocation rather than a dissertation whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that sure. Criticizes Wolfe saying his `` new journalism '' style was completely unsuited to persuading me of the gang, will. Attribute of all attributes it were n't just an appeal to authority of nerves! 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