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Common Fire: Lives of Commitment in a Complex World
Four educational researchers profile more than one hundred people who have devoted their lives to the common good in a broad spectrum of fields, assessing the experiences, relationships, and ideals that encouraged them to understand themselves as part of a community at large.
273 pages, Hardcover
First published June 28, 1996
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May 27, 2008
Common Fire is a scintillating work--but I'm not sure it's (ENTIRELY) aptly named. The "Fire" part seems to me entirely appropriate, for this book is positively pyrotechnic in its passion and pizzazz! On the other hand, its approach and content are FAR FROM "Common." This book is a masterful synthesis of wit and wisdom. It combines impeccable intellectual and academic credentials with a profoundly spiritual sense of consciousness. It taps and appeals to both the heart AND the mind. In other words, it plumbs the depth of our souls.
Citing scholars as diverse as Ronald Heifetz (of Leadership W/out Easy Answers), Robert Kegan (of In Over Our Heads), Nel Noddings (of Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics & Moral Education), Robert Bellah et al. (of Habits of the Heart), Robert Putnam (of Bowling Alone ), Lev Vygotsky (of Thought and Language), Cornel West (of Race Matters, etc.), Erik Erikson, Thich Nhat Hanh, Peter Senge (of The 5th Discipline), and Garrett Hardin (who wrote the seminal essay: "The Tragedy of the Commons")--as well as MANY others, Common Fire touches its readers in remarkably nuanced and incisive ways.
The book chronicles the lives of actual people who are extraordinarily committed to serving the common/public good. These (auto)biographical sources lend the book an air of practical, non-fictional, personal authority. The "subjects" of the authors' study thus come across with all their human subjectivity, diversity, and individuality intact. But the book is also carefully enough researched, and thoroughly enough informed, that it conveys a more sweeping sense of "objective truth," as well. Perhaps that's because its authors understand and appreciate paradox, mystery, etc.
Dialectiticians at heart, they see the world thru' a subtle lens of dialectical sophistication & perspicacity. Moreover, their lyrical, compelling prose makes it a veritable page-turner. This book is engrossing. Once it entranced me within its seductive clutches, I couldn't put it down. When I finally finished it, I felt CHANGED, renewed, inspired in a way books rarely make me feel. Common Fire demonstrates the power of "constructive engagement with otherness," of the transcendent joy and possibilities of "living within and beyond our respective tribes," of "developing critical habits of mind, a responsible imagination," and "struggling with human fallibility."
SOMETHING has made you investigate this book thus far. I recommend your continuing to follow WHATEVER cosmic force is drawing you thither: So now you have only to go get your hands on this book in order to feel its promethean spark!
Citing scholars as diverse as Ronald Heifetz (of Leadership W/out Easy Answers), Robert Kegan (of In Over Our Heads), Nel Noddings (of Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics & Moral Education), Robert Bellah et al. (of Habits of the Heart), Robert Putnam (of Bowling Alone ), Lev Vygotsky (of Thought and Language), Cornel West (of Race Matters, etc.), Erik Erikson, Thich Nhat Hanh, Peter Senge (of The 5th Discipline), and Garrett Hardin (who wrote the seminal essay: "The Tragedy of the Commons")--as well as MANY others, Common Fire touches its readers in remarkably nuanced and incisive ways.
The book chronicles the lives of actual people who are extraordinarily committed to serving the common/public good. These (auto)biographical sources lend the book an air of practical, non-fictional, personal authority. The "subjects" of the authors' study thus come across with all their human subjectivity, diversity, and individuality intact. But the book is also carefully enough researched, and thoroughly enough informed, that it conveys a more sweeping sense of "objective truth," as well. Perhaps that's because its authors understand and appreciate paradox, mystery, etc.
Dialectiticians at heart, they see the world thru' a subtle lens of dialectical sophistication & perspicacity. Moreover, their lyrical, compelling prose makes it a veritable page-turner. This book is engrossing. Once it entranced me within its seductive clutches, I couldn't put it down. When I finally finished it, I felt CHANGED, renewed, inspired in a way books rarely make me feel. Common Fire demonstrates the power of "constructive engagement with otherness," of the transcendent joy and possibilities of "living within and beyond our respective tribes," of "developing critical habits of mind, a responsible imagination," and "struggling with human fallibility."
SOMETHING has made you investigate this book thus far. I recommend your continuing to follow WHATEVER cosmic force is drawing you thither: So now you have only to go get your hands on this book in order to feel its promethean spark!
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