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ADVANCE INFORMATION

LifeonPlanet

Earth

User's Guide

Cecil Jenkins

KEY SELLING POINTS

A non-fiction philosophy book which brings together all the challenges at present facing humanity.
Combines thorough research with a light-hearted and humorous writing style, making complex topics
accessible and enjoyable to read for audiences of all backgrounds.
Authorisanacademicandwriter.

Cecil Jenkins provides a coherent analysis of the interlocking challenges confronting humans, the younger
generation most directly, on this small planet. While firmly backed by research, it is written with humour within
ateasingframeworkandinaneasyconversationalstyle.

Aftersketchingthecosmicaccidentsthatcreatedtheplanet,killedoffthedinosaursand made wayforthe
modernhumantoevolveinto‘theonlycreaturetoknowthatitwilldie’,Cecilbeginswiththesuccessive
lotteries determining conception, gender, physical appearance and the interplay of Nature and Nurture. This
leads directly to the family, with its often-testing dynamics and its birth order stereotypes, which are then
viewedinrelationtowealth,socialclass,politicalchangeandindeedtothemanyconflictingreligionsand
ideologies.

Having proceeded against this background to examine the changing nature of relationships, both social and
intimate, he moves finally to the major challenges now facing our species: the life-or-death question of climate
change, the promising yet menacing onset of artificial intelligence, and the mysterious dark matter and energy
thatreduceourareaof understandingto5% of theuniverse. Afterlooking atchangingviewsof death,heends
ona noteof cautiousoptimism.

Cecil Jenkins taughtatSussexUniversity,wherehealsoservedforaperiodasDeanofEuropeanStudies.In
addition to his published academic books, A Brief History of France; A Brief History of Paris; the critical
studies Mauriac and André Malraux, he has published a prize-winning crime novel, a novel about Picasso, and
hadthreestage plays performed, one inNewYork,plus plays onRadio 3.He is based inLondon.

Publication Date: 28th October 2024 £9.99 ISBN: 9781836280095
Thema subject category: QD – Philosophy
paperback 198 x 129 mm 160 pp Portrait Author location: London

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