Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael"

Paper Summary:

This paper summarizes, discusses, and analyzes Daniel Quinn's book, "Ishmael", and describes the lessons for humanity that Quinn presents in the book. The paper explains the premise of the book and then talks about the program to save the world as presented by the narrator of the story. The paper concludes with the author offering a very positive critique of the book and by suggesting that it should be on the required reading list for high school students.

From the Paper:

"After reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, it's very difficult to understand how this innovative and thought-provoking author had a hard time finding a publisher for his unique and powerful book. Quinn has taken the history of our civilization and quality-of-our-planet themes " very familiar to any informed reader in 2004 " to new heights and new levels of understanding. And he did so with a distinctive dialog format, borrowed from Plato's Republic and re-structured through a narrator who engages in a telepathic dialog with a very wise gorilla named Ishmael. While there are in this book some oversimplifications, the richness and power of the ideas offers convincing evidence that population growth, if not restrained in some way, will be our planet's undoing. The fact that Quinn won the Turner Tomorrow Award ($500,000 plus the attendant publicity for fiction that "produces creative and positive solutions to global problems") says a lot about the quality of Ishmael. And if humans want quality of life to be restored on Earth, we need to heed the lessons contained in this book."

More papers on Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael":

• Comparison Essay # 74592 : "Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael" vs. "Genesis"
• Analytical Essay # 9075 : "Ishmael": An Environmental Ethical Issue"
• Analytical Essay # 6598 : "Ishmael"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: