Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud, By Peter Watson. HarperCollins, 2005.

"This is a grand book...The history of ideas deserves treatment on this scale."  —Evening Standard (London)

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.

Download Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

Excerpt, provided by HarperCollins.

PDF format, 2.6MB, 73Pages.

About the Author

Peter Watson is the author of thirteen books, including The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. He is a research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He lives in London, England.

Visit the Book HarperCollins Official Website

Peter Watson (b. 1943) is an intellectual historian and author from London, England. He was educated at the University of Durham, University of London, and University of Rome. He was the deputy editor of New Society, and was on the "Insight" team of The Sunday Times for four years. He was also the New York correspondent of The Times, and has written for The New York Times, The Sunday Times, The Observer, Punch, and The Spectator.

He has also been a television presenter for the arts. In June 1997, he was appointed Research Associate, based in London and France, at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He has written thirteen books.

(From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Comments (2)

Name

Email

Comment

smaller | bigger

Add Comment