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A Map to the End of Time: Wayfarings with Friends and Philosophers | 
 enlarge | Author: Ronald J. Manheimer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 966106
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 332
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.3
ISBN: 0393047253
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.2601
EAN: 9780393047257
ASIN: 0393047253
Publication Date: April 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: As listed edition. May or may not have some highlights and markings. May or may not have CDs DVDs or other materials. We will select the best available text from multiple copies Buy with confidence, we have been selling on Amazon for over 5 years to thousands of customers. Fast shipping.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
In 1976, inspired by Tennyson's poem "Ulysses"--in which the hero of Greek mythology declares his intention late in life "to follow knowledge like a sinking star / beyond the utmost bound of human thought"--Ronald Manheimer began teaching philosophy to retired senior citizens, hoping to gain some insight into growing older through listening to their stories. The conversations collected in A Map to the End of Time demonstrate the fruitfulness of that project, putting a modern spin on the search for answers to the eternal questions. Although the dialogue is almost too good to be true in some spots, the analyses of texts like T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (or more traditional philosophers such as Plato and Mill) that emerge from his stories are often both poignant and penetrating.
Product Description
Ronald Manheimer began to teach philosophy to a group of senior citizens in the hope that their experiences might help connect him to the great philosphical ideas and clarify his thoughts about aging and mortality. His conversations with his students and others around him provide him with dazzling new insight into his own life and his place in the world. A gifted teacher and philosopher, Manheimer's recounting of his class' discussions are playful and profound. When some of Manheimer's younger students take part in the class' philosphical search, an interesting fusion of generations and ideas occurs. Manheimer, his students and the reader all come closer to understanding that becoming a self is to become a citizen of the world of interconnected ideas and beliefs. In these tales which explore answers to life's Big Questions, Manheimer reinvigorates the ancient tradition of using storytelling to explore truth. Showing how ideas and lives can illuminate one another, his engaging narratives address these questions while providing an inviting exploration of the ideas of thinkers from Plato and Aristotle to Kierkegaard, John Stuart Mill and Martin Buber.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Elegant and Inspiring July 26, 2000
I stumbled on this book in the university bookstore and was fascinated from the first pages. Mannheimer does a beautiful job illuminating the ideas of philosophers through the stories of older people he has met. I was particularly taken with Uncle Joe, whose musings at a bar mitvah on the sources of laughter were delightful and profound. If you are looking for an entertaining, gentle, and thoughtful read filled with wonderful characters -- this is the book for you.
Philosophy as a tool for one's own journey into old age. July 9, 1999
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
When it comes to bookstores and libraries, I'm a browser and a grazer-always looking for and often finding serendipitously that book I can't put down until I've read it cover-to-cover. Ron Manheimer's "A Map to the End of Time" is one of those finds! Recognizing the author's name from our professional connections in gerontology and adult education, I picked the book off the "New Non-Fiction" shelf at a favorite bookstore where I can read and have my Saturday morning latte and scone at the same time. By the time the last scone crumb was devoured, I was hooked on this book. Over the next few days, I found I could hardly put it down and, when I came to the last page, I immediately turned back to the first page and started reading it again. Then, I began to ask what it is about this book that captured me. Part of the answer is the conversational style that allows me to think of what I would ask and say in conversations with Ron's "wayfaring friends and philosophers" -Ron opens the door and invites the reader in as a participant. Even more compelling is how this author carries the reader along on his shoulder as he journeys through his own search for answers to his own questions about the meaning, tasks, and new opportunities of old age. Through his own search, then, Ron role models how a philosophical perspective enriches both the journey and the search. Because he continues to ask new questions or rephrase those previously asked, he encourages readers to explore their own path with their own questions. Instead of an abstract and erudite discipline, this book has helped me learn how to use philosophy as a tool in my personal search for the meaning of my own aging and to think about what it is that I want to do and am meant to do as I take my own journey into the land of old age. (C. Joanne Grabinski, President, AgeEd)
 Focus's on older people's look at what is important in life. May 28, 1999
A conversational look at how and why older people look at life's key issues differently than younger people. Ron Manheimer is a trained philosopher who began teaching philosophy to retired people and became fascinated by their perspective on the key issues with which philosophers have busied themselves over the centuries. This is philosophy for the layman at it's best, because it ties abstract ideas and theories to real people and their personal experiences. It is almost as if one were taking one of Ron's classes with him - he describes his students personalities and histories and then gives you their interchange in the classes he taught. But the book is more about the evolution of his own thinking on aging and how increasing experience can change one's perspective on TRUTH. The shortfall of the book is that Ron may try to do too much - we get to know some of his students and then they disappear as he embarks on his own journey and then we find ourselves in another class with different students 20 years later. He is trying to cover a lot of ideas and does it easily and well - using his various classes and experiences as backdrops upon which to paint his picture. Some times I could have stayed longer in one setting before he moved on. But I really enjoyed the book and am buying a copy for my mother in law who would have been a great character in this book. It is clear Ron Manheimer loves his subject and the people and ideas he writes about - that love comes out in his book.
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