New Science (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Giambattista Vico (Author), David Marsh (Translator), Anthony Grafton (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Classics | Publication Date: January 1, 2000

Barely acknowledged in his lifetime, the New Science of Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is an astonishingly perceptive and ambitious attempt to decipher the history, mythology and laws of the ancient world. Discarding the Renaissance notion of the classical as an idealised model for the modern, it argues that the key to true understanding of the past lies in accepting that the customs and emotional lives of ancient Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, Jews and Babylonians were radically different from our own. Along the way, Vico explores a huge variety of topics, ranging from physics to poetics, money to monsters, and family structures to the Flood. Marking a crucial turning-point in humanist thinking, New Science has remained deeply influential since the dawn of Romanticism, inspiring the work of Karl Marx and even influencing the framework for Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian

About the Author

Although Vico (1668-1744) lived his whole life as an obscure academic in Naples, his New Science is an astonishingly ambitious attempt to decode the history, mythology and law of the ancient world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; 3rd edition (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140435697
• ISBN-13: 978-0140435696
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #43 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > Italian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic Wisdom, July 11, 1999

By 

"bpjammin" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the Addition of Practic of the New Science (Cornell Paperbacks) (Paperback)

This is a very unusual book. It is an unorthodox view of history that became the source of inspiration to a diverse group of scholars such as Karl Marx, James Joyce and Marshall McLuhan. It was my reading of McLuhan that caused me to seek out Vico, and therefore, read this book.

If you have an interest in words and entomology, this is a book for you. Vico looks for the origin of civilization in the origin of words, and proposes theories that provoke thoughtful reflection. McLuhan used Vico to chart the future of civilization, as did Joyce.

It is impossible to sum-up this book in a few words, and it is difficult to explain why it is worth reading, but nonetheless, I recommend it to those of you who have stumbled upon it here. If you've gotten to this page, of the 800 million pages in cyberspace, then you are probably someone who should read Vico.

If you've never read Vico before, I highly recommend his autobiography, which contains a scholarly overview of Vico and his thought. It is a slimmer volume than this one, and could help you decide to read-on.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Often Overlooked Masterpiece, December 19, 2002

By 

Mr. Egregious - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the Addition of Practic of the New Science (Cornell Paperbacks) (Paperback)

Most people come to Vico for one of three reasons: historical perspective (fans of Spengler), philosophical curiosity (fans of Marx), or literary insight (fans of Joyce). Regardless of the motivation, the reader will be confronted with a highly unconventional text at first: the open of the book is an overlong explanation of the bookplate. Then we are faced with a collection of Nietzschian aphorisms. By the third part of the book, if the second part hasn't trigged an interest, the explication of parts 1 and 2 grab and take hold of the reader. The result? Once the reader finishes the book, the seemingly obtuse open seems perfectly reasonable for in the course of the text for Vico assimilates history, anthropology, philosophy, philology, and genealogy into a comprehensive whole which is perfectly symbolized by the bookplate. Though, at times, his premises seem rather far-fetched (Vico himself notes this), the intent of the work is rarely obscured. The only complaint? Perhaps Vico could have expanded the work more to make his attempted scope and range cohere better. But then, Frazier did this in a similar work (The Golden Bough) and we have 12 volumes to show for it!

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece, April 4, 2001

By A Customer

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This review is from: New Science (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

That Vico is largely unknown, even by the so-called experts teaching in our universitiues, while mediocrities and worse of the past half century are lauded and taught widely is yet another indication that our educational standards are dumbed down considerably. Vico is difficult to read, and we are increasingly an intellectually lazy people who prefer simplistic platitudes that sooth our postmodernist prejudices.

I give this Penguin edition only a 4 not because New Science is not itself a 5 or because the translation itself is weak, but because Vico requires copious notes. Most who read this work will do so on their own, and they need considerable help unless they are already as well read in the Classics and works of the Medieval and Renaissance eras as was Vico himself. Perhaps soon we will see an edition that meets that need, which also might encourage a few more to teach Vico, before we fall into the re-barbarism.