Wild Hunger: The Primal Roots of Modern Addiction (Paperback)

This book is absolutely on the cutting edge—even ahead of its time. It brings us an entirely new way of understanding addiction, one of the major curses of industrial society in the late twentieth century. After Wild Hunger, it will be very difficult to think of addiction as a purely medical-neurological problem. Footnotes provide interesting information and lead the reader to the other source. Literate and spiritually refreshing. The book is an interesting indicator of current trends in fin-de-siecle America. An impassioned plea for rediscovering our primal need for ecstatic involvement in the world. . . will speak to a wide audience. Wilshire gives insight into the nature of the pseudo-ecstasy of addiction...and how a new awakening can come about. Carries the analysis of addiction to new heights and depths. We are immersed in the ultimate question of what we once called 'salvation.' Quite unlike any other work I know on addiction, culture, or spirit, this text becomes a living site of recognition and regeneration, an eco-textual therapeutic you immediately begin to practice and share. Startling! Writing with passion and honesty, Wilshire shows that in addiction we participate in degenerative vicious circles that substitute for the regenerative cycles of nature. [Wilshire]'s approac is intuitive and imaginative, mixing medical and scientific research with the insights of Thoreau, James, Dewey, Muir, ad St. Paul, and he is most persuasive when describing the alienating disaffections of dualism, patriarchy, and a scientism whhich places inordinate faith in technology. A worthwhile contribution to the study of addiction, which rarely receives such sustained, serious reflection by professional philosophers. . . . Wilshire makes a significant contribution not only to the study of addiction but also to the remedying of the ever-widening cultural-societal situation in which modern addictions proliferate. Wild Hunger is an incredibly rich book. . . . This is a book that is sure to interest philosophers, especially American philosophers and phenomenologists, but also medical doctors, anthropologists, feminists, psychologists, addiction counselors, addicts, relatives of addicts, and, more generally, anyone who is concerned with the ominous signs that our present way of inhabiting the world is interfering with our opportunity to realize our most primal needs.