1998, Random House, NY, 298 pages

Boorstin is the ultimate book geek, librarian extraordinaire, who served as the Librarian of Congress even as his nation lost its soul. And that, the human soul—the concept of our transcendent possibility—is of what Boorstin writes in this very readable survey of the expanding human consciousness. As a science-fiction writer dealing with time travel and a writer of historical fiction and history, his work has been of immeasurable value.

For commercial purposes we are supposed to write from a worldview shared by our current soulless readership; are charged by our chasing of economic gain with writing in the language of worshipful greed understood by the postmodern bipedal packrat. However writing from such a banal perspective will not result in something worth reading by a thinker of some future age. Whether writing about our time or others, the author who produces a work with a real human perspective stands the better chance of being of lasting use to those who would read for reasons other than titillating entertainment or moral sedation.

My copy of The Seekers is worn and dog-eared. I will not take a journey into any portion of the past known to the author without consulting him.

Boorstin orders his survey into 8 ages, broken down into dozens of 1,000 to 1,500 word essays on key thinkers:

1. Ancient Heritage, in which he discusses the Judaic prophets and the concepts of the dictatorial divine upon which our societal outline is yet based

2. The Way of Philosophers, in which I think he shines the brightest, with his examination of Aristotle evocative and living, not as if one had just painted a picture forever dead, as much history is written.

3. The Christian Way, which explores the rise of the religion as an experiment in collectivity.

4. Way of Discovery, in which the works of Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Virgil, More, Bacon and Descartes are discussed as vehicles for the human experience.

5. The Liberal Way, from Machiavelli to Hegel, in which the ideas of six thinkers who shaped our current worldview are considered.

6. The Momentum of History in which social revolution and evolution is discussed through the eyes of Condorcet, Comte, Marx, Spangler and Toynbee

7. Sanctuaries of Doubt, is the author’s most esoteric section, in which he discusses the literature of history, wonder and bewilderment, including a nice 3 page piece on William James and one of the same length on Oliver Wendell Holmes.

8. A World in Process: The Meaning in The Seeking, is about the men who—against current prejudice—hold in continuity the torch of seeking with the earliest theocrats and dreamers, though we tend to pit them against these ancient counterparts. Acton, Malraux, Bergson and Einstein are profiled as the inspirational descendents of the biblical prophets and Greek philosophers.

In terms of charting the evolution of the human perspective The Seekers is the most important reference work in my tiny library, and best of all provides a five to ten minute read on many a real striving human who left their mark for us to consider.