The style sticks to the middle ground between journalism and the best, most entertaining fiction. Slaughters holy scientific cows left, right and center. Most troublesome of all, Wolfe acted like an annoyed child each time he had to “correct” himself with the “new politically correct” terms for indigenous people, making it partway through the word “native” EVERY TIME. The disrespect is delicious. The Kingdom of Speech is best read, then, with Wolfe not just as a narrator-historian but as a character. I’m not sure how much Wolfe believes, or disbelieves, in evolution, but he does criticize it here. Why Wolfe spends the first half of the book showing off his ignorance by pretending the Theory of Evolution doesn't have any scientific merit or relevance is unclear, since the second half of the book, about linguistics, is spent dismissing evolution's relevance to the field. Satirist Tom Wolfe is back with another contrarian broadside against sacred cows. The Kingdom of Speech is best read, then, with Wolfe not just as a narrator-historian but as a character. This book is different in that Wolfe has ventured into scientific theory - or actually, holy writ, i.e. ), Perhaps more along the lines that those who gave the book one star are defenders of scientific protocols for verification of proof. A great entertaining read. But you have to go back to 1981 and From Bauhaus to Our House to find Wolfe’s last extended, book-length piece of non-fiction. Protocol requires if new evidence emerges that credibly challenges established conclusions, scientists reexamine the issue at hand and alter theories as required to accommodate new data. This being Tom Wolfe, the ponderous debate over language and evolution takes on a kind of pop-art pizzazz…. Now the maestro storyteller turns his attention to the mystery behind the creation of hiw own most important tool.In The Kingdom of Speech… The style sticks to the middle ground between journalism and the best, most entertaining fiction. I laughed so much that I don't think I'll ever be able to read anything by those two too seriously (actually, I probably wouldn't even bother with Chompsky). I'm not sure that I disagree - I'll wait until I've read the book to dete, Your rebuttal would be compelling if it weren't just an appeal to authority. This book is poorly argued, makes no sense, and is generally extremely annoying. The Kingdom of Speech is best read, then, with Wolfe not just as a narrator-historian but as a character. First, he rounds up the usual emperors in their usual new clothes, parades them before us, and pokes them with sticks that wouldn't hurt so bad i. I was scrolling through thousands of my library's digital offerings when I saw this and thought, "Hmmm...I've never read any Tom Wolfe; maybe I should give him a try." This is a bit like his classic attacks on pretentious flim flammery, This book is, simply put, the heresy of an uneducated washed-up author. Not having read any Tom Wolfe before, I was riveted by the prose style of this book, with its ellipses, colloquial asides, and multiple exclamation marks. Now the maestro storyteller turns his attention to the mystery behind the creation of hiw own most important tool.In The Kingdom of Speech… Give your children a fun way of discovering or remembering the tasks of each part of speech with our fun version of the Story of Parts of Speech. Of all the nerve. Wonderful to have Tom Wolfe back and setting fire to sacred cows. Wolfe's logic is completely lacking and shows how not arrive at a theory through proper scientific method. The Kingdom of Speech, written by Tom Wolfe, is a simple and interesting book looking at the miracle of human speech, or language.. Wolfe begins with the theory of evolution and Charles Darwin. The text, while clearly under-researched, still touches on enough important. The Kingdom of Speech is about the origins of language, not the comedy of egoistic one-upmanship—though it is about that, too. The Kingdom of Speech is a paradigm-shifting argument that speech - not evolution - is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. August 30th 2016 The most glaring problem with Tom Wolfe’s The Kingdom of Speech is its marketing materials. Another key shortfall: speech and language are not the same thing! With that said, I was happy to find that I had not yet read all of Wolfe's non-fiction (thanks to. It helped me understand how little understood language is so that I could more properly assess the potential of NLP. As an erstwhile colleague of mine put it in his review of the book in the Washington Post (. I recommend this book to you if you have more than half a brain, so that you can muse at the shortcomings. – Nate Hopper, Time “To say that animals evolved into man is like saying that Carrara marble evolved into Michelangelo's David. Five stars for making fun of Darwin (for the despicable way he double-crossed Alfred Wallace) and Chompsky (for being an armchair intellectual nincompoop). The maestro storyteller and reporter provocatively argues that what we think we know about speech and human evolution is wrong. Maybe Tom Wolfe should be commended for diving headfirst into a complicated, even esoteric, debate raging inside linguistics and exposing it to a far larger audience than ever before. First there was the word. This one you figure, try it, maybe? Speech is what man pays homage to in every moment he can imagine.”, “We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.”. He also appears unable to meaningfully back/cite/logically argue any of his lofty claims. I am sure it is possible to write a great book with this technique and perhaps Tom Wolfe has already done it, but this one is unfortunately a complete mess. Start by marking “The Kingdom of Speech” as Want to Read: Error rating book. He makes several claims in the book that show how uneducated he is. The Kingdom of Speech is best read, then, with Wolfe not just as a narrator-historian but as a character. 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. (I mean, these gods are worshipped so devotedly so as to make you ill). After Wolfe's death I looked for books he authored that I hadn't read. He shows that Chuck D himself felt it then, and how Chomsky grants it today. Well...! 4.5. Slaughters holy scientific cows left, right and center. This vapid piece of preening ignorance will stand as a pointless landmark (or better yet, sink like a witless stone) to sturm-und-drang self-regard. Darwin sought not just a workable theory of evolution in general, but a theory that would explain, without resort to God, The Descent of Man , as he titled the sequel to On the Origin of Species . In The Kingdom of Speech, Wolfe takes on two scientific icons, Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky. Tom Wolfe tries to take down Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky with baffling (and terrible) results. Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. Should you take neither tome seriously? The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech — not evolution — is responsible for humanity’s complex societies and achievements. He's got a remarkable gift with words, so it is not remarkable that he would turn is attention in this book to the subject of how we got them. Darwinian evolutionary theory. ….a hundred years from now, the one whose work will still be read — whose work will remain imperishable in the face of any new discoveries — is Wolfe. The Kingdom of Speech is… Combining the vagueness of informal language with the pomposity of formal language, Wolfe's style is grating and awkward for non-fiction writing, but this book is short enough that it didn't accumulate into intolerable for me. Tom Wolfe, whose legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to arouse widespread debate. by Little, Brown and Company. Perhaps the impetus for writing it came from the awareness that science, while in the 150 years that separates us from Darwin, had invented relativity and microbiology, despite intense effort had failed to produce even a compelling theory regarding the origin of speech. This is not because he disagrees with the standard theory, but because his arguments consist of claiming there is no proof. He also used way too many ellipses and said "solar plexus" an unreasonable number of times in such a short book. This is one. Chomsky would be the first to insist that his frameworks need to under go the same rigorous challenges as theories in other disciplines do. Tom Wolfe is back!!! (I mean, these gods are worshipped so devotedly so as to make you ill). Darwinian evolutionary theory. Thoughtnerds writes the content about tutorials to make all intrested Nerds to improve their programming skills. But besides the major structural weakness and many lesser weaknesses, what makes this book a bad one is the last few pages, in which Wolfe summons all of his formidable arrogance in a bizarre, unsupported rant in which he claims to have found the answer to life, the linguoverse and everything. ― Tom Wolfe, The Kingdom of Speech. Or was there?Before Tom Wolfe was a bestselling novelist, he was a groundbreaking journalist. I used it as additional ammun. *PDF format / 200 pages A complicated and brilliant book. —Nate Hopper, Time The Kingdom of Speech is a paradigm-shifting argument that speech - not evolution - is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. Wolfe demonstrates how Speech is the silver bullet for Darwinism. Yes! —Nate Hopper, Time I hated his writing style which came across as pompous, over confident, and rude. (Have you even read the book? A curiously entertaining little book. I hope to write more about this later. For a reporter-then-novelist to write about evolution is like me writing a treatise on brain surgery. 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 forms a loose trilogy with "The Painted Word," Wolfe's dissection of art and art criticism, and "From Bauhaus to Our House," his similar evisceration of architectural theory. The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech -- not evolution -- is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. Speech is what man pays homage to in every moment he can imagine.”. The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech -- not evolution -- is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. But you have to go back to 1981 and From Bauhaus to Our House to find Wolfe’s last extended, book-length piece of non-fiction. No. Surprisingly, for me at least, Wolfe careens between wildly engaging works, think Bonfire of the Vanities, to the near tears boredom inducing, A Man in Full. Five stars for making fun of Darwin (for the despicable way he double-crossed Alfred Wallace) and Chompsky (for being an armchair intellectual nincompoop). Imagine you're at a party and off in the corner is an enigmatic man dressed in white talking to a large group. “The Kingdom of Speech” is meant to be a provocation rather than a dissertation. One who, after critiquing theorists who rule from insulated rooms, depicts himself in that exact setting for his book's final vision." Alternate title: "The Wrong Stuff. Public policy think tank advancing a culture of purpose, creativity, and innovation. 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. Buy this book. Wolfe's logic is completely lacking and shows how not arrive at a theory through proper scientific method. Both Huxley's in his day and now Chomsky's forces use tactics of smear, threat and professional ruin to exclude any contrary opinions and thereby create a consensus of fear rather than allow the chips to fall as they may. One who, after critiquing theorists who rule from insulated rooms, depicts himself in that exact setting for his book's final vision." This comment about Darwin’s view of speech stuck out (emphasis mine): He could not figure out what it was. The maestro storyteller and reporter provocatively argues that what we think we know about speech and human evolution is wrong. I normally would give this a 4 star rating, but I noticed there are a lot of pained 1 star reviews, so I upped my rating to a 5 to bring back some balance to the total average. This is the type of rhetoric that damages the progression of science. 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