Waves and Stones

We all see the world around us differently. Some people believe in gradual political progress; others push for radical revolution. Some of us see our lives as a long process of growth and change, and others as a series of landmark events.

In Waves and Stones, philosopher Graham Harman gives a name to this age-old debate, and lays out a new, unified theory for understanding it. 'Waves' look at the world through continuities, from phenomena as diverse as the incremental baby steps of childhood to the slow creep of fascism. The 'stone' perspective, by contrast, favours jarring discontinuity: the first day at secondary school, or the dropping of the atom bomb. This divide is one of the most fundamental paradoxes in human thought.

With dazzling insight, Harman shows how the question of gradual vs sudden change can be found wherever we turn, at the heart of every intellectual discipline from mathematics to politics and embedded in the fabric of our daily lives. Tracing its roots from Aristotle to Bergson, he proposes a new way of thinking about this ancient problem, with profound implications for our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.