A first glance (particularly if you are an atheist) this is a seemingly impossible and definitely daunting read – 800 soul-rending pages? But in my weird librarian way I tackled it by randomly opening and diving in. Fun to skim through the thousands of years of history of the mind (Ham conflates the mind with the soul). Surprisingly I was smitten. Ham, an Australian, is a professor at an esteemed educational institute in France and is a polymath. Reading this tome felt like being in a college seminar – Ham’s brilliance and mastery of the subject never flags. He even manages a bit of humor – chapter sub-title I Kant --when he humorously claims no expertise in obtuse Kantian philosophy. Needless to say, this is an exhaustive overview and in proper pedagogical fashion the author declines to take a position. Readers are given copious rope to do with the content as they please.
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