Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud [Paperback]

Peter Watson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2006

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Watson's (The Modern Mind) hefty tome distills history's greatest ideas and inventions into an impressive discourse on history's driving forces, enlivened by anecdotes and made approachable by Watson's casual, nearly conspiratorial, tone. Watson presents a vast amount of information, but his greatest strength lies in his ability to make an immensely varied body of material coherent and digestible. The author asks the reader to approach his history "as an alternative to more conventional history-as history with the kings and emperors and dynasties and generals left out," and assumes "readers will know the bare bones of historical chronology." Central to Watson's approach is his belief that the scientific experiment, as it took root in medieval Europe, forever changed history's intellectual landscape. (Watson goes as far as labeling the scientific method "the purest form of democracy there is.") Whereas the non-Western world once dominated intellectual spheres (The author notes that the Hindu mathematician Aryabhata calculated the value of pi and the solar year's length, determined that the earth revolved around the sun and discovered the cause of eclipses nearly a thousand years before Copernicus), Watson points to a grand-and specific-shift that changed that dynamic: "The eleventh and twelfth centuries were a hinge period, when the great European acceleration began. From then on, the history of new ideas happened mainly in what we now call the West." This analysis is indicative of Watson's scholarship, and the result is a rich tapestry of intellectual and cultural life through the ages.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Pegging his narrative to three ideas--the soul, Europe, and experiment--Watson surveys intellectual history for a popular audience. Departing from the earliest indications of abstract thought--tools fashioned by ancestral human species--Watson highlights the crucial efflorescence of artwork 30,000 years ago, followed by the agriculture revolution. Watson then assesses classical Greece as the crucial incubator of ideas, incomparable to any other situation in history. This is the origin of his inclusion of "Europe" as one of his three organizers of a massive sweep of material: while Watson covers the important intellectual influences emanating from Islam, India, and China, he maintains Europe is where the cogitational action has been. Eurocentrism has been a field of fierce academic contests, traces of which bubble up in Watson's consideration of the main phases of Western thought. Judaism, Christianity, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution, and the Enlightenment--Watson enfolds changing conceptions of the objective, material world, and of the subjective world of the human psyche in a confident, accessible presentation. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060935642
• ISBN-13: 978-0060935641
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > History > Historical Study > Civilization & Culture

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every person that would like to call him/herself educated should read this book, September 16, 2005

By 

A. de Wet (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud (Hardcover)

An absolutely amazing book. It has illuminated so many cause and effect chains for me that I can hardly believe how much I've learnt in such a short time. If history at school could be presented from this angle, it would fundamentally increase the general understanding of who, what and where we are.

Watson is a great writer that conveys an incredible amount of information with a story teller's flair. Quite an investment in time, worth every second.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book on History from a different perspective..., March 19, 2006

By 

Fernando Berzal Galiano (Granada, Spain) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud (Hardcover)

This is a fantastic book that covers how ideas have developed through History and explains a lot of things about ourselves, members of the Western world in the 21st century.

If you are like me, you didn't enjoy your History classes much when they were all about the particular (and too often unrelated) dates of political and military events. Fortunately, brilliant historians such as Peter Watson know how to weave countless facts into an engaging history, from Gilgamesh to the Cavendish Laboratory at the dawn of the 20th century.

Don't you know what Gilgamesh is? Maybe you should take a look at this book and enjoy yourself learning and thinking about things you might have taken for granted and never questioned.

This book is highly recommended for those who, keeping an open mind, want to be aware of how humans have evolved through History and would like to get to the roots of our many habits and traditions.

I wish all educated people could enjoy the insightful comments and innumerable associations of ideas that Peter Watson shares with us in his delightful history of ideas.

Maybe the most encompassing book on History ever written. Certainly the best I have ever read. A book on History from a different perspective.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exceptional book, December 12, 2005

By 

birdmanct (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud (Hardcover)

This is the history book I've always wanted to read, not a history of war but a history of ideas. A look at the index gives you an inkling of what's in store for the fortunate reader. It's size is a bit intimidating, but the scope and depth of the material demands it.
I thought the NY Times interview [panned by 'Texan' below] was inciteful and funny. To rate a book you clearly haven't read based on a reply in an interview is to deliberately mislead the literate people who would enjoy this book. Please ignore Texan's "review", and do read this book.