To Light the Flame of Reason

As a publisher, Christer Sturmark is unique. In the books that he champions you can see his passions for reason and tolerance, for the full flowering of human potential. And now those passions are on full display in a beautiful book of his own, as lucid and illuminating as it is warm and inspiring. What a world it would be if there were more Christer’s populating it. Let enough people read his book and maybe there will be.

Rebecca Goldstein

Christer Sturmark has done as much as anyone to uphold reason and humane critical thinking. ..His values are gathered and refocused in this, his own book. As a bonus, ..the eminent writer and polymath Douglas Hofstadter, adds his own distinctive lustre to an already luminous volume.

Richard Dawkins

In an era in which the ideals of the Enlightenment need all the help they can get, we’re lucky to have such a lucid, stylish, and intelligent exposition and defense. This is truly a book for our time.

Steven Pinker

Not only is Christer Sturmark and Douglas Hofstadter writing with clarity and passion about our urgent need for the values of enlightenment in this sad time of populism and scorn for science.

They also have this wonderful page turning quality in their prose, that completely captures you like a good crime novel.

David Lagercrantz, the New York Times number one bestselling author of

The Girl in the Spiders Web.

The author of ‘To Light the Flame of Reason’, Christer Sturmark, has personally met and interviewed an impressive number of today’s intellectual giants. He always manages to make the discussions highly interesting with straight-to-the point questions, thought-provoking angles and analogies, and a good sense of humor. Likewise with this impressive book. If a book like this had been available when I was in my late teens, it would have saved me years of collecting and contemplating important information about human thinking - and its failures. Today’s youth need these insights even more, in this period of knowledge resistance, filter bubbles, internet trolls, fake news, false accusations of fake news, not to speak of dogmatic religions. Research indicates that the senior generation is even more gullible regarding social media. Thus, many adults too will benefit from reading this comprehensive collection of arguments - if they still have an open mind, i.e., open to rational reasoning and logical arguments.

Dan Larhammar, Professor, President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

We live in a highly polarized world. Knowledge resistance, conspiracy theories and fake news make it ever more difficult to navigate. In To Light the Flame of Reason: Clear Thinking for the Twenty-first Century. Christer Sturmark reflects on our place in history as well as on our potential future as a more united and reasoning humankind. He gives a credible and sensible voice to the new enlightenment-oriented worldview.

Björn Ulvaeus, lyricist, songwriter, former member of ABBA