The Flame of Reason

In an era in which the ideals of the Enlightenment need all the help they can get, we're lucky to have such a lucid, stylish, and intelligent exposition and defense. This is truly a book for our time -- Steven Pinker In Sweden's public square, Christer Sturmark has done as much as anyone to uphold reason and humane critical thinking... and now his values are gathered and refocused in this book' -- Richard Dawkins Christer Sturmark reflects on our place in history as well as on our potential future as a more united and reasoning humankind. He gives a credible and sensible voice to the new enlightenment-oriented worldview -- Bjoern Ulvaeus If a book like this had been available when I was in my late teens, it would have saved me years of collecting and contemplating important information about human thinking - and its failures -- Dan Larhammar, President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences As lucid and illuminating as it is warm and inspiring -- Rebecca Goldstein

Christer Sturmark is a Swedish author and public intellectual. He is the founder and publisher of Fri Tanke ('Free Thought') and often appears on television and in public gatherings to defend science and to argue against dogmas, superstition, and pseudoscientific thinking. He lives on the island of Lidingoe, just outside Stockholm, with his nine-year-old son Leo, and enjoys playing piano, guitar, and chess. Douglas Hofstadter is a professor of cognitive science and comparative literature at Indiana University. His first book, Goedel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. He is known for his writings on minds and machines, analogy, and translation.