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Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud Paperback – Illustrated, September 26, 2006
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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.
- Print length852 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateSeptember 26, 2006
- Dimensions1.35 x 7.37 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100060935642
- ISBN-13978-0060935641
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“This is a grand book...The history of ideas deserves treatment on this scale.” — Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Evening Standard (London)
“A superior specimen, with numerous interesting factoids...thought-provoking short essays.” — John Derbyshire, New York Sun
“A masterpiece of historical writing.” — John Gray, Professor of European Thought, London School of Economics, New Statesman
“[An] extraordinary new book....This is the history of ‘ideas’ as it has never been presented before.” — Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph (London)
From the Back Cover
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.
About the Author
Peter Watson has been a senioreditor at the London Sunday Times, a New York correspondentof the London Times, a columnist for theLondon Observer, and a contributor to the New YorkTimes. He has published three exposés on the world ofart and antiquities, and is the author of several booksof cultural and intellectual history. From 1997 to 2007he was a research associate at the McDonald Institutefor Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.He lives in London.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Ideas
A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to FreudBy Peter WatsonHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 Peter WatsonAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0060935642
Chapter One
Ideas Before Language
George Schaller, director of the Wildlife Conservation Division of the New York Zoological Society, is known to his fellow biologists as a meticulous observer of wild animals. In a long and distinguished career he has made many systematic studies of lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, wild dogs, mountain gorillas and hyenas. His book, The Last Panda, published in 1993, recorded many new and striking facts about the animal the Chinese call the 'bearcat'. He found that on one occasion a sick panda had gone freely to a human family in the Wolong area, where it was fed sugar and rice porridge for three days, until it recovered and returned to the forest.1
In the late 1960s Schaller and a colleague spent a few days on the Serengeti plain in Tanzania, East Africa, where they made a simple observation which had escaped everyone else. In the course of those few days, they stumbled across quite a lot of dead meat 'just lying around'. They found dead buffalo, the butchered remains of lion kills, and they also came across a few incapacitated animals that would have been easy prey for carnivores. Smaller deer (like Thompson's gazelles) remained uneaten for barely a day but larger animals, such as adult buffalo, 'persisted as significant food resources' for about four days.2Schaller concluded from this that early humans could have survived quite easily on the Serengeti simply by scavenging, that there was enough 'ruin' in the bush for them to live on without going hunting. Other colleagues subsequently pointed out that even today the Hadza, a hunter-gathering tribe who live in northern Tanzania, sometimes scavenge by creeping up on lions who have made a kill and then creating a loud din. The lions are frightened away.
This outline of man's earliest lifestyle is conjectural.3 And to dignify the practice as an 'idea' is surely an exaggeration: this was instinct at work. But scavenging, unromantic as it sounds, may not be such a bad starting-point. It may even be that the open African savannah was the type of environment which favoured animals who were generalists, as much as specialists, like a hippopotamus, for example, or a giraffe, and it is this which stimulated mankind's intelligence in the first place. The scavenging hypothesis has, however, found recent support from a study of the marks made on bones excavated at palaeontological sites: animals killed by carnivores do show tool marks but fewer than those butchered by humans. It is important to stress that meat-eating in early humans does not, in and of itself, imply hunting.4
There are two candidates for humankind's first idea, one rather more hypothetical than the other. The more hypothetical relates to bipedalism. For a long time, ever since the publication of The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin in 1871, the matter of bipedalism was felt to be a non-issue. Following Darwin, everyone assumed that man's early ancestors descended from the trees and began to walk upright because of changes in the climate, which made rainforest scarcer and open savannah more common. (Between 6.5 million and 5 million years ago, the Antarctic ice-cap sucked so much water from the oceans that the Mediterranean was drained dry.) This dating agrees well with the genetic evidence. It is now known that the basic mutation rate in DNA is 0.71 per cent per million years. Working back from the present difference between chimpanzee and human DNA, we arrive at a figure of 6.6 million years ago for the chimpanzeehuman divergence.5
Several species of bipedal ape have now been discovered in Africa, all the way back to Sahelanthropus, who lived six to seven million years ago in the Djurab desert of Chad and was close to the common ancestor for chimpanzees and humans.6 But the human ancestor which illustrates bipedalism best is Australopithecus afarensis, better known as 'Lucy', because on the night she was discovered the Beatles' song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' was playing in the palaeontologists' camp. Enough of Lucy's skeleton survives to put beyond doubt the fact that, by 3.4 to 2.9 million years ago, early humans were bipedal.
It is now believed that the first and most important spurt in the brain size of man's direct ancestors was associated with the evolution of bipedalism. (Most important because it was the largest; there is evidence that our brains are, relative to our bodies, slightly smaller now than in the past.) 7 In the new, open, savannah-type environment, so it is argued, walking upright freed the arms and hands to transport food to the more widely scattered trees where other group members were living. It was bipedalism which also freed the hands to make stone tools, which helped early man change his diet to a carnivorous one which, in providing much more calorie-rich food, enabled further brain growth. But there was a second important consequence: the upright posture also made possible the descent of the larynx, which lies much lower in the throat of humans than in the apes.8 At its new level, the larynx was in a much better position to form vowels and consonants. In addition, bipedalism also changed the pattern of breathing, which improved the quality of sound. Finally, meat, as well as being more nutritious, was easier to chew than tough plant material, and this helped modify the structure of the jaw, encouraging fine muscles to develop which, among other things, enabled subtler movements of the tongue, necessary for the varied range of sounds used in speech. Cutting-tools also supplemented teeth which may therefore have become smaller, helpful in the development of speech. None of this was 'intended', of course; it was a 'spin-off' as a result of bipedalism and meat-eating. A final consequence of bipedalism was that females could only give birth to relatively small-brained offspring—because mothers needed relatively narrow pelvises to be able to walk efficiently. From this it followed that the infants would be dependent on their mothers for a considerable period, which . . .
Continues...
Excerpted from Ideasby Peter Watson Copyright © 2006 by Peter Watson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; Annotated edition (September 26, 2006)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 852 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0060935642
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060935641
- Item Weight : 2.4 pounds
- Dimensions : 1.35 x 7.37 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #149,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #220 in History of Religions
- #318 in History of Civilization & Culture
- #1,414 in Sociology Reference
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Peter Watson is the author of War on the Mind, Wisdom and Strength, The Caravaggio Conspiracy, Ideas, and The German Genius. 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. He lives in London.
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Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They appreciate the intellectual history from prehistoric times through the end of the 20th century. Readers praise the writing style as clear, easy to read, and engaging. The book has a vast scope and depth that customers enjoy. The author is described as brilliant and well-educated.
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Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They appreciate its scope and scholarship, finding it a worthwhile experience. The author's writing style is conversational, making the book never boring. Overall, readers describe it as an excellent work that provides valuable insights into various topics.
"“Ideas”, by Peter Watson, is a remarkable book, and not one to be approached lightly. At 800+ pages it is encyclopedic in content...." Read more
"...what psyche is; but the author has taken up the challenge and done exceptionally well...." Read more
"...In summary, this is a must book for all those curious about the greatest ideas of humankind...." Read more
"...This finely written (and edited) book was a pleasure from the beginning...." Read more
Customers find the book an excellent synthesis of intellectual history from prehistoric times through the end of the 20th century. They find it fascinating and well-presented, with many interesting asides and anecdotes. The range of ideas and topics covered is astounding, as it says the title "From Fire to Freud". The content is rich and satisfying, with insightful summaries and contextualizing.
"...that Watson could have assembled, organized, and presented so much information. In the small bits that I know something about, Watson is spot-on!" Read more
"...at our own contemporary time, but instead, is a referential body of the episodes in human history that allowed successive generations of man to..." Read more
"...4. It's encyclopedic work condensed in a book. 5. Elegantly and clearly written. 6. A wide and I mean wide range of topics. 7...." Read more
"This is an astonishing compilation of the history of ideas, offered in "digestible bites"!..." Read more
Customers find the book's writing style engaging and easy to read. They appreciate the insightful summary and contextualizing, as well as the author's straightforward style that develops ideas. The book is detailed yet never boring, making it easy to relate various concepts at the same time.
"...This book is easy to read, made for any age and lays forth an encouragement that the reader will continue to delve deeper into human history and to..." Read more
"...2. Interesting tidbits throughout and I enjoyed how the author ties things together. 3...." Read more
"...not to take himself too seriously in his presentation, sprinkling lighthearted remarks and observations along the way--further adding to the reading..." Read more
"...on the Romantic movement starts out with some excellent, really insightful summarizing and contextualizing...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's depth and breadth. They find the scope impressive and enjoy reading it.
"...I could barely put the book down and thoroughly enjoyed the book's breadth...." Read more
"This is an extraordinary book, the vast scope never loses focus and it's written in a straight style, developing the author's ideas in a compelling..." Read more
"I have not completed the book yet but what I am reading is impressive in its scale and scope, well written, immense in richness of research..." Read more
"I'm about six chapters into this book. It's pretty big. The chapters are easy to read and well thought out...." Read more
Customers find the author brilliant and well-educated. They say he makes certain topics interesting and is a great thinker.
"...Furthermore, this author, while obviously extremely well educated in all the subjects in the book, chose not to take himself too seriously in his..." Read more
"Very informative, very interesting. Brilliant author." Read more
"Really enjoy this book, the author is wonderful at making certain topics interesting, and including SO MUCH information !" Read more
"...does my son; we are both interested in history, etc... Peter Watson is a great thinker; highly recommended." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's scholarship. They find the writing style clear and engaging, with an impressive breadth of knowledge. The author's dedication and scholarly work make it worth their time.
"...for authors like Mr. Watson who's incredible dedication and scholarly work make it so worth my time. Positives: 1...." Read more
"...Such scholarship and a clear writing style. Reading and rereading is a most worthwhile experience." Read more
"The book is impressive -- both in scope and scholarship...." Read more
"...Watson writes in an engaging style and the breadth of his scholarship is impressive...." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2012It is quite impossible for any one person to say with absolute authority exactly what are all the ideas, concepts, innovations and insights that lead the human forward in the advancement of civilization through the activities of harnessing nature,establishing just laws, instituting the best educational curriculum for social progress, and understanding what psyche is; but the author has taken up the challenge and done exceptionally well. This book is not really a story that starts at some beginning of time and then brings the reader up to a conclusion at our own contemporary time, but instead, is a referential body of the episodes in human history that allowed successive generations of man to build the next future upon and from which then brought forth the steady rise of human betterment. Mr. Watson begins with the civilization of Sumer and proceeds to the last pages with the great scientific breakthroughs of modern physics and American law at the beginning of the 20th century. This is history told in a different light and is one worth reading. One can pick any chapter or any paragraph at random if so desired and find themselves enriched. Or, one can read from beginning to end without interruption. When it is customary for historical work to usually highlight the actions of presidents, titans of commerce, military generals and admirals, campaigns of conquests and the corresponding rise and fall of political systems and their empires, Mr. Watson traces a very different path here and the reader is well rewarded. Does he include all the important philosophers and scientists, engineers and artists and men of medicine? No. But that is not really a shortcoming. He does an adroit job of showing how the rise of man's intellect and improvement in living has been a steady progression of brilliant steps which subtly reveals just what a marvel is the human mind, just what an amazing species are we humans, able to look at the world and pluck out of the imaginative well that is the mind some element that when utilized changes the whole of our world, usually for the good. This book is easy to read, made for any age and lays forth an encouragement that the reader will continue to delve deeper into human history and to pay more attention to those who are often forgotten or ignored in the usual quest of national pride to place triumphant heroes on pedestals to be deified by the common person or to be idolized by some future grandiose politician. I cannot possibly think that any one can truly find fault with the scope and perspective and general aim of this book and what it strives to accomplish.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2024This author really knew the audience he was addressing. This finely written (and edited) book was a pleasure from the beginning. I am aware the length of this tome was in the author's mind, but he must have known that his time and space limitations acted as a tease for the reader who wanted to know more. The bibliography and footnotes were excellent, but it sure would have been nice to have read expansions in this author's own style. Furthermore, this author, while obviously extremely well educated in all the subjects in the book, chose not to take himself too seriously in his presentation, sprinkling lighthearted remarks and observations along the way--further adding to the reading pleasure.
I have gifted copies of this book to several and have recommended it to many more. I thank the author.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2021“Ideas”, by Peter Watson, is a remarkable book, and not one to be approached lightly. At 800+ pages it is encyclopedic in content. Rather than being organized alphabetically, it is organized around 36 broad ideas, each with its own chapter. It is well indexed, with one index devoted to names and places, another to ideas. Even so, the scope is so vast, key names are missing in the index, an example being Copernicus.
The best way to approach the book is probably by reading a specific chapter of interest. An example might be chapter 23 titled “The Genius of Experiment”, which is about the scientific revolution, and which does indeed give considerable credit to Copernicus. Having said that, chapter 23 is just one of 36 chapters, so its treatment of the scientific revolution is necessarily brief. Much more thorough treatments of the rise of modern science can be found elsewhere, for instance in “A History of Science” by W.C. Dampier first published in 1929.
A fascinating aspect of Watson’s book is that it highlights the unevenness of the development of ideas, both geographically and over time. It is a refreshing departure from the “Western Civilization” approach to so many of its topics. There is a lot of discussion of things outside the Levant-Greece-Rome-Europe corridor so prominent in so many treatments. In chapter 3 titled “The Birth of the Gods, the Evolution of House and Home”, for instance, we learn that the domestication of plants and animals occurred independently in 2 areas of the world for certain, and probably 7. The certain 2 are the Fertile Crescent and Mesoamerica. The probably 5 are New Guinea, China, sub-Saharan Africa, the Andes, and eastern North America.
If you are fascinated by history and ideas, this is a great book to have at your fingertips. It is remarkable that Watson could have assembled, organized, and presented so much information. In the small bits that I know something about, Watson is spot-on!
- Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2019Oh, the length of it! 30+ chapters, each one packed with detail -- it was so daunting that our Book Club divided it up, each one taking several chapters to read and then present salient points to the group. But once I started reading my "assignment," I couldn't stop. It's fascinating. Watson reviews the development of major ideas over time that have greatly influenced civilizations, and "connects the dots" for us in enlightening ways.
Top reviews from other countries
- Aritra D.Reviewed in India on July 28, 2023
4.0 out of 5 stars Nice book
Very detailed history of human civilization
- DawnMontgomeryReviewed in Canada on December 30, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book. My thanks and admiration to Peter Watson ...
An amazing book. My thanks and admiration to Peter Watson for such exceptional scholarship. Delivery earlier than anticipated also. Great reading for 2015!
- A. JarvisReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 9, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars A True Masterpiece!
One of the best books I have ever read. It's over 800 pages, yet I read it three times.
-
Frank ReiboldReviewed in Germany on August 30, 2007
4.0 out of 5 stars Ausgewogene Darstellung
In diesem Buch stellt der Autor die Entwicklung der wichtigsten Ideen dar (vom Feuer bis zu Freud). Die Darstellung beginnt mit den Erfindungen der Urmenschen (Feuer, Faustkeil, Religion) und endet bei der "Entdeckung" des Unterbewusstseins durch Freud. Das zwanzigste Jahrhundert wird in einem anderen Buch behandelt.
Einige der Ideen sind:
- Kapitalismus, Liberalismus, Fabriken, Armut / Reichtum, Adel / Bürgertum / Arbeiter
- Marx, Sozialismus, Gewerkschaften
- Religionen und Atheismus
- Entstehung der Geisteswissenschaften (Soziologie, Wirtschaftswissenschaften)
- Nationalismus, Imperialismus
- Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche bzw. Kaiser und Papst
- Darwins Evolutionstheorie und deren Verbindungen zu Soziologie, Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Rassismus
- Philosophie von der Antike (Plato, Aristoteles) über Leibniz, Spinoza und Kant bis zum amerikanischen Pragmatismus (Dewey)
- politische Theorien wie Demokratie und Gewaltenteilung von der Antike über Machiavelli, Locke und Hobbes zur Moderne (vor allem Mill und Marx)
- Entwicklung der Naturwissenschaften (vor allem Kopernikus, Newton und Galilei) und deren Probleme mit der Inquisition
Daraus ergeben sich eine Reihe von Fragen, die im Buch auch beantwortet werden:
- Welche Verbindung besteht zwischen Reformation und Kapitalismus?
- Warum entstand die führende Zivilisation in Europa?
- Weshalb waren China, Indien und Islam früher Europa voraus und warum kehrte sich dieses Verhältnis um?
Das Buch ist auf dem neuesten Stand; so werden z. B. auch schon die Zwergurmenschen auf der Insel Flores (von manchen "Hobbits" genannt) beschrieben. Die Darstellung ist i. d. R. ausgewogen. Nach Ansicht des Autors ist der rote Faden der Ideengeschichte die Suche nach der Seele bzw. dem menschlichen Bewusstsein. Diese Frage habe von den Naturwissenschaften und der Vernunft abgelenkt und zu übernatürlichen Spekulationen geführt; eine allgemein akzeptierte Antwort gibt es bis heute nicht. Deshalb sei die Philosophie des rationalen Aristoteles insgesamt hilfreicher gewesen als die des idealistischen Plato.
Natürlich wird jeder etwas finden, was seiner Meinung nach besser oder zusätzlich hätte beschrieben werden können. Mir kam z. B. die Darstellung der Wirtschaftswissenschaften etwas zu kurz. Wenn man die Evolution der Wirtschaftswissenschaften von Smith über Ricardo zu Marx beschreibt, hätte man auch die größte Revolution der Wirtschaftswissenschaften erwähnen sollen (nämlich die "subjektive Wertlehre" von Menger, Walras, Jevons um 1870; durch diese wird u. a. Marx' Lohntheorie widerlegt). Die von Menger gegründete "österreichische Schule" stellt die Folgen der Industriellen Revolution nicht so negativ dar wie der Autor: Es stimmt demnach zwar, dass durch die Industrialisierung viele Arme in die Fabriken der Städte strömten, wo sie unter unmenschlichen Bedingungen arbeiten mussten; auf dem Land ging es ihnen aber zuvor noch schlechter (wenn sie dort nicht ohnehin verhungerten). Viele Missstände lassen sich auf die Napoleonischen Kriege und staatliche Eingriffe in die Marktwirtschaft (z. B. Steuern auf Fenster, sodass fensterlose Häuser gebaut wurden) zurück führen. Das kann man in "Capitalism and the Historians" von Hayek nachlesen.
Ich kann das Buch jedem empfehlen, der seinen Horizont erweitern möchte. Man lernt auf jeder Seite etwas Neues.
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2018
2.0 out of 5 stars cover damage
I bought it as a gift and I opened the box, the cover was damaged.