Nobody could accuse Peter Watson (Biography – Peter Watson, author) of lack of ambition. In this 1152 page book the author presents the history of human thought between two covers.
The story 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 developed by humans, 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, and the profound intellectual consequences of money. He describes the invention of writing, early ideas about law, why sacrifice and the soul have proved such enduring ideas 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 radically changed 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 between 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: A History From Fire To Freud is a staggering work which cannot be absorbed in a few sittings. It is a book to read through in a number of months. The prize is nothing less than an understanding of the history of the human mind.
There are 82 pages of notes and references pointing to further reading.
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1152 pages in Weidenfeld & Nicolson paperback
First published 2005
ISBN-13 : 978-0753820896
Peter Watson