Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud
by Peter Watson
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From the first control of fire to the birth of modern physics, discover the defining leaps of thought that shaped our world.
Watson focuses on the tangible inventions that transformed daily life. His comprehensive study traces a remarkable course through antiquity, following early toolmakers along the Gona river.
Mesopotamian cities provide the setting for another pivotal advance. This disciplined account opens a clear vantage on human ingenuity, detailing how urban settlements at Eridu and Uruk established cuneiform archives and schools.
Peter Watson's hugely ambitious and stimulating history of ideas from deep antiquity to the present day—from the invention of writing, mathematics, science, and philosophy to the rise of such concepts as the law, sacrifice, democracy, and the soul—offers an illuminated path to a greater understanding of our world and ourselves.
- World History: Explores global shifts in civilisational momentum, investigating why China's medieval lead in papermaking, movable type, and magnetic navigation eventually gave way to Western acceleration.
- Human Evolution: Traces how Jacques Boucher de Perthes' discovery of flint hand-axes beside extinct elephant molars at Abbeville forced nineteenth-century geologists to acknowledge deep human antiquity.
- Economic History: Examines the transformative impact of commerce, from the stamping of electrum coins in ancient Lydia to the emergence of paper banknotes under the Song dynasty.
- Intellectual History: Follows the recovery and transmission of classical learning, detailing how the twelfth-century translation school of Toledo and the earliest universities at Bologna and Paris laid the groundwork for modern inquiry.
- Also by This Author: The German Genius and The Great Divide.
Details
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Author
- Peter Watson
- Format
- Paperback
- Published
- Sep 26, 2006
- ISBN-13
- 9780060935641
- ISBN-10
- 0060935642
- Pages
- 852
- Carton quantity
- 12 copies
Ideas for groups: pricing
Volume pricing applies automatically in your cart. No codes, no account needed.
| Copies | Price per copy | You save |
|---|---|---|
| 25 – 99 | $13.56 | 41% off list |
| 100 – 249 | $12.87 | 44% off list |
| 250 – 499 | $12.18 | 47% off list |
| 500 – 999 | $11.72 | 49% off list |
| 1,000+ | $11.27 | 51% off list |
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