Title: Sum and Substance: Comprehending Yourself, Your Universe and Your World
Author: William L. Martin
Publisher: ‎ William L. Martin
ISBN: ‎ 979-8986065700
Pages: ‎ 305
Genre: Non-Fiction
Reviewed by: David Allen

Read Book Review

“Another damned thick heavy book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon?”  Duke of Gloucester (1743 – 1805).  So begins William Martin’s masterful book, part essay, part memoir, which is only some 300 pages long.

H. G. Wells’ The Outline of History(1920), educated generations of readers with its ambitious well illustrated omnibus of biology, chemistry, history, anthropology, and geography. In that book, Wells takes readers on a rather brisk stroll through many thousands of years of life – particularly human life, mankind – on this Earth.

Through life, the Universe attempts to understand itself. Human beings are the first species to leave what could be an indelible ecological footprint on the planet. William Martin steps in to fill the breach, catching us up on recent scientific and cultural paradigm shifts that might have surprised even Wells. Martin is a polymath scholar and original thinker whose wit and wisdom inform every page of this book. Martin’s version of history, including bullet pointed lists of empires, conquerors of lands and people, leads to certain ineluctable conclusions. IT’S TIME TO ACT.

The photo illustrations are germane and well chosen. The writing is persuasive, crisp, to the point. Martin’s background – electrical engineering at Stanford, then MIT, then a career in the defense industry – ably informs his arguments. Chapters on the scientific method, numbers, the Universe, the Big Bang, ideologies and civilizations ably survey the high points of all this, from Gautama Buddha to George Beadle and beyond.

The book is brimming with wonderful quotes. The author’s opening statement – “This book summarizes the entire body of work of humanity” – may seem grandiose – no book or person can really do that. But this book would be a great place to start.

Granted, any history, even the weightiest tomes, reflect the biases and political prejudices of their author. Likewise with Martin. Martin’s broadsides at the mindless rape of the environment, the madness of war, at the zero-sum total of unconstrained commerce and greed are frightening. The chapter on Systems of Belief is aptly subtitled, Everyone is in the minority.

Books like Martin’s are not only the writing on the wall: they are the wall! They are guideposts, handrails, Jacob’s ladders, that should be written, publicized, and passed from hand to hand. Our challenges, problems and conflicts as a society can only be addressed when they are recognized. Sum and Substance: Comprehending Yourself, Your Universe and Your World shows how and why we need to change our world.