IDEAS: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud
by Watson, Peter
- Used
- Paperback
- Condition
- Very Good -/No Jacket
- ISBN 10
- 006621064X
- ISBN 13
- 9780066210643
- Seller
-
Seneca, Pennsylvania, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
In this hugely ambitious and stimulating book, Peter Watson describes the history of ideas, from deep antiquity to the present day, leading to a new way of understanding our world and ourselves.The narrative begins nearly two million years ago with the invention of hand-axes and explores how some of our most cherished notions might have originated before humans had language. Then, in a broad sweep, the book moves forward to consider not the battles and treaties of kings and prime ministers, emperors and generals, but the most important ideas we have evolved, by which we live and which separate us from other animals. Watson explores the first languages and the first words, the birth of the gods, the origins of art, the profound intellectual consequences of money. He describes the invention of writing, early ideas about law, why sacrifice and the soul have proved so enduring in religion. He explains how ideas about time evolved, how numbers were conceived, how science, medicine, sociology, economics, and capitalism came into being. He shows how the discovery of the New World changed forever the way that we think, and why Chinese creativity faded after the Middle Ages.In the course of this commanding narrative, Watson reveals the linkages down the ages in the ideas of many apparently disparate philosophers, astronomers, religious leaders, biologists, inventors, poets, jurists, and scores of others. Aristotle jostles with Aquinas, Ptolemy with Photius, Kalidasa with Zhu Xi, Beethoven with Strindberg, Jefferson with Freud. Ideas is a seminal work.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Russ States (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 15-0784
- Title
- IDEAS: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud
- Author
- Watson, Peter
- Format/Binding
- Paperback
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good -
- Jacket Condition
- No Jacket
- ISBN 10
- 006621064X
- ISBN 13
- 9780066210643
- Publisher
- HarperPerennial
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2005
- Keywords
- Civilization, History, Intellectual Life
Terms of Sale
Russ States
30 day return guarantee, with full refund including shipping costs for up to 30 days after delivery if an item arrives misdescribed or damaged.
About the Seller
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Shelfwear
- Minor wear resulting from a book being place on, and taken from a bookshelf, especially along the bottom edge.