Customer Reviews

A World of Ideas : The Dictionary of Important Ideas and Thinkers

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Chris Rohmann wanted a definition of dislectic materialism. His response - a book discussing terms and people from religion, philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, history, art, literature, and science in a dictionary format. But it is much more! Some entries are up to two pages in length - far beyond a traditional terse dictionary definition. Unlike a dictionary it has a "Key Terms and Proper Names" index that guides you to related articles. Also, typographical techniques within the context of the articles alert you to related entries. Accompanying some entries are feature articles that are set off in boxes contributing to this book's visual appeal. The articles I read impressed me by being comprehensive, concise, yet intelligible. If I already knew something about a topic, the discussion reaffirmed my understanding. Articles about terms/people unknown to me were informative and understandable. Rohmann recommends the book for the non-academic, like himself, but I would contend that the potential user have a certain level of sophistication. First, a need or a want for the information within the covers of the book, and secondly, a basic understanding of the vocabulary in the numerous fields covered would be necessary. So, I recommend this book for everyone who is curious, and for everyone who needs to know about the world of important theories, concepts, beliefs, and thinkers!

If you're an avid reader of philosophy, history, psychology, science, or even just the New York Times, you're likely to find "A World of Ideas" to be quite helpful. Often I find that I come across a word that I feel I should know, but can't quite remember the gist of it (e.g., "What does 'hermeneutics' mean again?"). This book provides very clear, concise, and helpful summaries (generally ranging from 1/2 to 2 pages long) for all the various "isms" (and other general topics) as well as the people who helped define them. It's organized like a compact encyclopedia, alphabetized by entry name, with copious cross-references to topics by using LARGE TYPE to refer to alternate encyclopedia entries. Entries on people focus on their ideas more than on biographical details. I've found the book to be an invaluable resource in my own informal studies of philosophy, where you come across familiar names but may not be familiar with the details of those thinkers' ideas. The author has done a fine job of distilling the entries down to their essential points, so that you really feel that you've learned the key ideas. The book is useful both as a reference as well as for casual reading (often I find myself looking up one entry and then going off on tangents to follow fascinating threads of cross-references that catch my eye).

"A World of Ideas" is an excellent reference book for anyone who wants to know more about philosophies, ideas, beliefs, and perspectives from numerous cultures through centuries of thought. Many of the ideas the author chose are subjects that I've wanted to understand for years. Several times I've found myself reading with my fingers stuck in different parts of the book because there are so many aspects to the entries that I want to find out more about. The entries are clear and very layperson-intelligible.

This "dictionary of ideas" is handily presented in alphabetical order, and the cross-referencing is extremely well done. And I love the fact that all of the different and sometimes opposing viewpoints are presented with equal weight -- nothing is put forward as being better or worse or right or wrong. It is truly clear information with no editorializing, no slant to prejudice a reader. It lets us make our own choices, and that is a great gift when it comes to presenting information.

The best part about it for me is that when I went to school, I always knew that they didn't offer information about the most interesting stuff, and I never knew where to find it. I've finally found it: "A World of Ideas" satisfies my intense curiosity about the infinitely diverse viewpoints through the centuries and around the world.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading or studying - period. I had returned to college after a twelve year absence to study history (I'd studied business before, yuck) and found many concepts, names, and ideas either new to me or fairly well forgotten. "A World of Ideas" became an absolute life-saver and, furthermore, a book that I began to peruse out of enjoyment and interest.

Contrary to another review, there is a list of sources for further reading. However, I doubt the mere 28 books listed will satisfy most needs, a fuller more specific listing would have been the icing on the cake. I usually reference "A World of Ideas" to clarify ideas from specific readings. In this case, the book in hand will usually have additional sources available in its notes and bibliography. Also, if you are taking a class, you can ask your professor. They love talking with interested students and can steer you towards appropriate books, or away from less useful ones.

I am unable to convey how helpful this book has been for me now, nor how strongly I wish that I had had it when I was in high school, or even before. If you crinkled your brow when Gore said, "... the zeitgeist", or if Hegelian dialectic sounds like a Greek waterway, then get this book.

This is a collection of capsule entries for key ideas in modern culture. The entires are frequently much too long and too detailed to represent merely definitions, but they are brief enough to satisfy the curiosity of most readers, and to stay very focused.

The best thing about this book is that the entries themselves are so very well researched and balanced, albeit often uninspired. The author has a real knack for cutting to the core of each idea right from the start, and then exposing the strongest view of both advocates and critics of that idea. There is a strong sense of the author attempting to be objective in each case, rather than trying to add his own spin. This is much closer to a true reference in style than an entertaining or satirical work like Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary." While it does a good job as a reference for the curious, the entries don't really hold your interest well enough to read it through from cover to cover.

This book has one very baffling aspect. Throughout the text, it is completely devoid of references or "further reading" suggestions ! For a book intended as a resource for curious readers, this is hard to explain and very disappointing. There is a small section at the very end with 3 pages of general reference works. Like the entries in the text, these are particularly well chosen, however there is no way to know how to proceed to further investigate any particular topic in the text.

The author is not an academic, but prepared the book with the assistance of many scholars. Even so, it seems to me that after all the research that Chris must have gone through to compose many of these superb and hard-to-define entries, he would have wanted to show where he got the information and where to get more. There is also the neccessary limitation of size, this book is less than 500 pages, so many interesting topics have been omitted.

This is a good, informative book covering in extremely lucid entries even the most difficult topics, many of which are otherwise nearly impossible to define without wading through difficult specialized texts. If the author had included some reading suggestions with each entry, and the publisher had the confidence to expand this to something closer to the 800 pages of Kenneth McLeish's "Key Ideas In Human Thought," this would have been a superb reference book. As it stands, it is a wonderful companion to McLeish, and I anxiously await the next volume if Chris continues this very valuable work.

For those using this as a starting place for building a library of reference works on modern ideas in general, it is probably also worth mentioning the dated but classic 5 volume reference book of concepts, "The Dictionary of the History of Ideas," 1973, from Scribner.

"A World of Ideas: The Dictionary of Important Ideas and Thinkers" started with an excellent concept, but seems to have fallen victim to poor execution. After spending time with this volume, I only give it a two star rating. I suspect that many of us would do better with a good one volume encyclopedia, such as the one volume "The Columbia Encyclopedia".

I do not think this should be a one author sort of enterprise. As I started looking through the book, I saw "Bacon, Francis" followed by a good two and a half page article. But, I could not find anything in the book on "Bacon, Roger (1214-1294?)", who was central to the re-birth of empericsm and the scientific method. (Also, nothing on Madame Curie, Roger Penrose or Richard Feynman) Further reading in the book confirmed that many ideas are missing or short-changed while others, of equal worth, are given good coverage. I looked for atheism and theism, but only found two articles on "God", one only mentioning atheism in passing. Yet, individual religions are given good articles. (Also, no articles on radiation, nuclear, nucleus, nuclear structure, radioactivity, fission, fusion, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, laser, spectra, spectrum, light, coherent light, frequency, or frequency doubling, though there is a short entry on wave-particle duality, without further explanation of wave theory.)

A second problem is that some of the articles are not stated with enough care. The author seems to be more comfortable with ideas outside of formal science than with ideas concerning science. (E.G., could not find speed of light, light, ether theory, Michelson/Morley experiment.)

I think the concept of this 'dictionary' needs to be expanded to include many of the ideas and people that are not treated with thoroughness.

Unfortunately, it is rather wierd when one steps into a sort of hole in the flow of ideas, where there should be a solid concept.

This book should be on everyone's shelf. This book is easy to read and is essentialy a dictionary of various philosophies. You won't get much insight from this book, nor will it maintain your interest very long. It is designed as a dictionary, not to be read from cover to cover. Use it as a reference rather than leisure reading.

If you're struggling with that last-minute paper, and trying to show you understand the basics of key terms and concepts, this is the book for you. Giving you a lot more than any standard dictionary would, this volume summarizes major ideas, thoughts and lives in the mere scope of approximately 500-1000 words. From Rastafarianism to deconstruction, from anomie to sunyata, it's all here and perfectly clear. Easy to read, arranged alphabetically, and with a full index and cross references. Also includes a bibliography for further reading. It should make a great gift for any college student.

'In order to know me, you must swallow the world, my world'...my adaptation of a saying by Immanuel Kant. The world this book encompasses is particularly easy to swallow, and particularly well done. The definitions are in-depth enough to offer a sense of real substance, but not so cumbersone as to alienate the casual reader.

Most likely you aren't supposed to read this book the way I did--which is from cover to cover, like a novel, from a priori/a posteriori to Zoroastrianism. In other words, like an obsessive-compulsive autodidact lunatic. And yet, having done so, I can faithfully report that read even in this fairly deadening way "A World of Ideas" is a fascinating, enjoyable, and informative read.

As in any book of this type, there will naturally be entries that you can probably skip ((I didn't)) because you already know enough about the topic. For instance, if you're a Lacanian psychoanalyst--and if you are, help me, please, I beg you--then you won't find much to inform you in the entry on Lacan here since it's so basic. But if Jacques Lacan sounds to you like a fancy French way to refer to a "can of Jacques" then be prepared to be educated.

There's stuff in here like "supply-side economics" and "abstract expressionism," "queer theory" and "Baruch Spinoza"--all kinds of things you hear and read about in passing, sometimes having a vague idea (often mistaken) what they mean, but that you'd be hard-pressed for the life of you to actually define in any intelligible, not to mention accurate, way should you ever be asked. Of course, unless you're running in far more interesting circles than I (or talk to yourself as extensively, exhaustively, and almost as exclusively as I), who among your acquaintance is going to strike up a conversation about Max Weber or Roland Barthes any time soon? But wouldn't it be a shame to miss a once-in-a-gazillion lifetime opportunity like that? Perhaps they only think it's as hopelessly depressing to mention such names to a dolt like you as you do to a nitwit like them. Wouldn't that be ironic?

Cross-referenced to easily locate related concepts and important personages, this is the kind of book that can very well lead the intellectually curious to dozens of others. Does that entry on post-structuralism intrigue you? Off you go then with a few clues as to where to learn more.

So there you have it. I hardly know what else to say. Oh...the entry on Schopenhauer...it's "Arthur" for crissakes, not "Joseph"!!! Okay, now I hardly know what else to say. "A World of Ideas" is a handy, happy, one-volume dictionary representative of everything important up to this very moment, give or take a few moments. If you feel like you've some holes to plug up in what passed for your official education, it's the do-it-yourself intellectual's version of duct-tape.

Coming soon: my heartstopping review of E.L. Doctorow's "The March"!!!