Aerospace engineer Rogers (co-author of The Spaceship Handbook) explores some of life's most basic questions from a vantage point vanishingly few humans have enjoyed: from space, a perspective that reveals reality as it actually is rather than how we simply perceive it. Inspired by astronauts’ accounts of the “Overview Effect,” or “the intense, spiritually transformative emotional experience” of seeing Earth (“the sum and container of all known life”) from orbit, Rogers makes the case that, as individuals, we tend to know and value most what we immediately perceive: our selves, our loved ones, our society. That means that our understanding of existence, our “Overview,” “includes other people's indirect inputs,” which can be dishonest—in Rogers’ view, American society has been preyed upon by “a dictatorial government's educational system designed to create an obedient subservient lower class of citizens” that persuades us to “voluntarily give up” freedom of choice.

Rogers calls for readers to experiment with this “Overview” perspective and explore questions of how we understand the world. The book is provocative, sometimes inspiring, but often given to sweeping assertions, conspiratorial thinking, and presumptions of the nefariousness of others. Readers drawn in by the promise of the healing vision of astronauts will wonder how “the overview effect” will help us avoid a “hierarchical authoritarian class-structured trap” or how Rogers, who calls for the questioning of so much, accepts with absolute certainty that leftist protesters are engaged in deliberate attempts to “crash” the economy and “lead you, me, and all future generations into a social chicken farm.”

Elsewhere, especially when contemplating the universe and existence and encouraging thinking and acting for change, Rogers is clear and inviting. "Knowledge, properly applied, gives you the power to improve the Universe," he writes, and the questions he explores—such as "what is change?", "what is time?", "What is God" or "What role does honor play in today's society?" run the gamut from philosophical to personal to scientific to moral, with answers that often prove resonant. At its best, the book challenges and reveals “the moral stature of the society you live in."

Takeaway: Call for a perspective shift undercut with vague conspiracies.

Comparable Titles: D.E. Wittkower's The Philosopher's Book of Questions & Answers, David Birch's Pandora's Book.

Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: A-