According to the jacket cover, John Leslie's Universes is “the first book by a philosopher on these controversial affairs.” Sadly, I must report, the controversy has gotten the better of his philosophy. Leslie's contribution to this area is merely to see, within the dispute, a narrow window through which to promote his own curious view of extreme axiarchism. This alone would not disturb me, were it not for the apparent disdain with which Leslie depicts views opposed to his own, and his infuriating technique of responding to those critics who fail to see the point of his tremendously contrived examples by dogmatically waving these same examples.