A Map to the End of Time: Wayfarings with Friends and Philosophers

In 1976, inspired by Tennyson's poem "Ulysses"--in which the hero of Greek mythology declares his intention late in life "to follow knowledge like a sinking star / beyond the utmost bound of human thought"--Ronald Manheimer began teaching philosophy to retired senior citizens, hoping to gain some insight into growing older through listening to their stories. The conversations collected in A Map to the End of Time demonstrate the fruitfulness of that project, putting a modern spin on the search for answers to the eternal questions. Although the dialogue is almost too good to be true in some spots, the analyses of texts like T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (or more traditional philosophers such as Plato and Mill) that emerge from his stories are often both poignant and penetrating.