Cons: Sagan is dead, so this is the last book he'll ever write.
The Bottom Line: Sagan's last book covers a wide range of topics, some scientific, others social. Those who expect a purely scientific work may be disappointed.
a_r_egerton's Full Review: Carl Sagan - Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life...
Billions and Billions, Carl Sagan's last work, is a collection of essays. It is less tightly focused than many of his earlier works, which tended to have a single main theme. Cosmos was about astronomy, for instance, while Dragons of Eden was about evolution. Billions and Billions, by contrast, covers a wide range of topics, including an analysis of football (I'm not kidding) and thoughts about his own impending death from a terminal illness.
Instead, Sagan has divided his book into three sections, each one very broadly themed. The first segment contains essays mostly pertaining to math and science. Two of these, "Four Cosmic Questions" and "So Many Suns, So Many Worlds" describe the astronomical mysteries that most fascinated Sagan, including the possibility of life on other worlds. Tragically, he wrote about these mysteries knowing he was unlikely to live to see them solved; he had already been diagnosed with myelodysplasia, a terminal illness, at the time he wrote about them.
The second segment, the most focused in the book, is about the environment. The first few chapters here describe Sagan's view of the environmentalist philosophy, while the later chapters describe the environmental problems he considered the most worrisome: global warming and the hole in the ozone layer.
The third segment are essays pertaining to social problems. Perhaps inevitably, a number of these are anti-war. Sagan had been an early proponent of the "nuclear winter" scenario, and was therefore deeply concerned about the possibility of nuclear war. The anti-war essays are also the oldest in the book; at least two were written in the late 1980's, when the Soviet Union still existed. This section also includes an interesting view on the abortion debate. Here, Sagan reasons that as our intelligence is what makes unique, it is the presence of fetal brain activity, not viability, that should be used to delimit a woman's right to an abortion. Sagan agrees with Roe vs. Wade in principle, but he argues for a different criterion.
His final essay, "In the Valley of the Shadow" is his most moving. Here, he tells of his battle with myelodysplasia, a rare disease that attacks the bone marrow, impairing the body's ability to produce red and white blood cells. It is also in this chapter that he admits he can understand the appeal of a belief in an afterlife. If such a phenomenon existed, he would be able to satisfy his curiosity about such matters as the possibility of interstellar flight. But he considers such beliefs to be wishful thinking, and also believes that his disbelief in an afterlife has increased his will to live. (He could be right. Myelodysplasia generally kills its victims within six months; Sagan survived for roughly two years.) Sagan also rightly credits his family, especially his wife and sister, for his long survival. Both women gave him the moral support he no doubt needed, and his sister donated the bone marrow he needed for his treatments.
Astoundingly, a majority of Sagan's essays seem to have been written after his diagnosis, which was in late 1994. But a good number of the essays refer to events in 1995 and 1996. While Sagan had indeed had several remissions during his illness, he would apparently still write even when sick.
His style remained the same, though. Sagan was one of a handful scientists with the happy gift for being able to explain complex ideas to a mostly lay readership. No matter what the topic, Sagan could write in a way so that most people understood his subject. Even better, he could explain without seeming to talk down to his readers. Those two attributes helped make Sagan one of the premier science writers of his day.
In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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