Chaunceton Bird's Reviews > Human Universe

This book explains reality through the examination of five ambitious questions: Where are we? Are we alone? Who are we? Why are we here? And what is our future? Through the use of interesting stories and simply explained complex scientific principles, Brian Cox provides answers to these questions. The book is certainly a relative of Carl Sagan's Cosmos (and, like Cosmos, it is based on a TV series by the same name). Like Cosmos, this book examines the history of the universe in an inviting and entertaining way.

Overall this is a hopeful love letter to humanity, encouraging the species to snap out of its meaningless superstitions and harmful social constructs and build a brighter future. For example, from pages 114–15: "The division into hundreds of countries whose borders and interests are defined by imagined local differences and arbitrary religious dogma, both of which are utterly irrelevant and meaningless on a galactic scale, must surely be addressed if we are to confront global problems such as mutually assured destruction, astroid threats, climate change, pandemic disease and who knows what else, and flourish beyond the twenty-first century."

I hope this book inspires many humans to study the sciences and contribute to progress of humanity.