Overview: In A Baroque Vision Nicholas Hagger chose key passages from his verse that convey the thread of his Baroque vision. In its companion volume The Essentials of Universalism he chooses key passages from his prose works that convey the thread of his Universalism, which grew out of his Baroque perspective.

Verdict: For those not in the literary know, author Nicholas Hagger’s literary, mystical, religious, philosophical, historical, cultural and political Universalist writings are innovatory. In 60 books he has: set out a new approach to literature and identified its fundamental theme as a quest for the One, an infinite Reality perceived as Light, that alternates with condemnation of social follies and vices; presented many mystics’ illuminations; seen the Light as the common essence of all religions; created a new philosophy of Universalism that restates the unity of the universe and challenges modern philosophy; charted the history of the rise and fall of civilizations; reconciled the divisions within world culture; and proposed a democratic World State with limited supranational power to abolish war and bring in a Golden Age of peace and prosperity. Phew!

His new quite wondrous prose is The Essentials of Universalism: A Philosophy of the Unity of the Universe and Humankind, of Interconnected Disciplines and a World State 75 Prose Selections from 25 Works, and is a simply stunning anthology of his writings that covers all aspects of his thinking and range.

Personally, I have now read this book through twice, albeit as it is nearly 800 pages long, the second time I flirted to chapters/segments that had drawn my attention the first time around, and have to say that it is so powerfully sculpted that, and almost from the off, it re-confirmed my own long-held, but largely secret, universalist hope.

Let there be no doubt about it, this book is the most comprehensive collection of modern awareness on the subject matter to hand that there has ever been, or that there is most likely to be (I would imagine). For this extraordinary book’s scope is veritably all-encompassing, diligently uniting rational strands of Western philosophy with the latest findings from physics, cosmology, psychology, biology, and, of course, ecology.

This in-depth, but never overly heavy, always lightly informative enough to carry the message without having to burden the reader with the overall weight of the subject matter, prose is unafraid to showcase its unabashed philosophical and scientific ponderings, all within a broad, yet at all times genial manner.

Chosen by the author himself, the excerpts include the most important passages in the Hagger canon and are representative of his vast output. Since the book was completed Hagger has brought out The Algorithm of Creation, the first-ever statement of a Theory of Everything and a further development of his Universalism.

In conclusion, this expertly curated anthology makes clear the main thrust of his life’s work and is required reading for all interested in seeing how his many innovations connect.

About the Author - Nicholas Hagger is the author of more than 50 books that include a substantial literary output and innovatory works within history, philosophy, literature and international politics and statecraft. As a man of letters he has written over 2,000 poems, two poetic epics, five verse plays, 1,200 short stories, two travelogues and three masques. In 2016 he was awarded the Gusi Peace Prize for Literature, and in 2019 the BRICS silver medal for Vision for Future. He lives in Essex, UK.

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