The Preaching of John Holt

Abstract

I have never before reviewed a book that I consider rather on the light-weight side, that I found unpleasant to read, and impossible to endorse, and whose chief explicit message I nonetheless support quite enthusiastically. This is how I see Holt’s present collection of essay’s. Its bulk consists of personal observations, diverse and uninteresting, and implicitly each of them is claimed to be typical of some sort of situation or another; sometimes they are even claimed explicitly to be typical, but seldom of what specific sort of situation (except for those very few observations that are claimed to reflect a universal predicament). Most of the observations are unpleasant—after all.