Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
“This is a grand book...The history of ideas deserves treatment on this scale.” Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Evening Standard (London)
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“[An] extraordinary new book....This is the history of ‘ideas as it has never been presented before.” Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph (London)
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“A superior specimen, with numerous interesting factoids...thought-provoking short essays.” John Derbyshire, New York Sun
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“A masterpiece of historical writing.” John Gray, Professor of European Thought, London School of Economics, New Statesman
Review
"Having given us The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century, [Watson]'s now undertaken an even more ambitious project Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, From Fire to Freud, a bold attempt to summarize the history of ideas from prehistoric times to the early years of the 20th century....Rather than merely chronicle the history of ideas, Watson also describes various theories of contemporary scholars as to their origin and significance. By bringing us up-to-date on the thinking and research of such specialists, his book challenges what may be some of the general (nonspecialist) reader's long-held assumptions." Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of The Modern Mind comes an absorbing overview of ideas synthesizing the intellectual and cultural history of Western thought.
Synopsis
What was the first spoken language like? Where did the belief in Paradise come from? And who came up with opera? In Ideas, Peter Watson presents an absorbing overview of innovation in the history of Western thought. Unlike more conventional histories, where the focus is on events and personalities, Ideas concentrates on intellectual achievements that have formed the world we know today.
Whether cosmological or typographical, new ideas have created the framework of our universe. From the origin of plus and minus signs in math to the discovery that all life is made up of cells, Watson explores concepts ranging from the simple to the abstruse. Ideas is a unique and fascinating retelling of history that celebrates human ingenuity while it explains why we see the universe in the way that we do.
Peter Watson was educated at the universities of Durham, London, and Rome. He has written for the Sunday Times, the Times, the New York Times, the Observer, and the Spectator, and is the author of War on the Mind, Wisdom and Strength, The Caravaggio Conspiracy, and other books. He lives in London.
"One is left gasping in admiration." -- London Times
About the Author
Peter Watson has been a senior editor at the London Sunday Times, the New York correspondent of the daily Times, and a columnist for the Observer. He has also written regularly for the New York Times and the Spectator. He is the author of several books of cultural and intellectual history, most recently Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud. From 1997 to 2007 he was a research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He lives in London.