The Discoverers: Volumes I and II Deluxe Illustrated Set with Slipcase
Where to buy The Discoverers: Volumes I and II Deluxe Illustrated Set with Slipcase books online?
Product Description
An original history of man’s greatest adventure: his search to learn the world around him.
From the Trade Paperback edition.Amazon.com Review
Perhaps the greatest book by one of our greatest historians, The Discoverers is a volume of sweeping range and majestic interpretation. To call it a history of science is an understatement; this is the tale of how humankind has come to know the world, but incompletely (“the eternal mystery of the world,” Einstein once said, “is its comprehensibility”). Daniel J. Boorstin first describes the liberating concept of time–”the first grand discovery”–and continues through the age of exploration and the advent of the natural and social sciences. The approach is idiosyncratic, with Boorstin lingering over particular facts and accomplishments rather than rushing on to the next set of names and dates. It’s also primarily Western, although Boorstin does question (and answer) several appealing questions: Why didn’t the Chinese “learn” Europe and America? Why didn’t the Arabs circumnavigate the planet? His thesis about discovery ultimately turns on what he calls “illusions of knowledge.” If we reflect we know something, then we face an hindrance to innovation. The fantastic discoverers, Boorstin shows, dispel the illusions and reveal something new about the world.
Although The Discoverers easily stands on its own, it is technically the first entry in a trilogy that also includes The Creators and The Seekers. An outstanding book–one of the best works of history to be establish anywhere. –John J. Miller
Buy Cheap The Discoverers: Volumes I and II Deluxe Illustrated Set with Slipcase Online
Related posts:
I don’t know how you can write a book on Discovery and the scientific achievements brought on by, and contributing to, discovery lacking acknowledging the Islamic Civilization which spanned nearly a thousand years. The leader starts with the Hellenistic period, and in less than one paragraph cites the contribution of Muslim empires as mere translators and preservers of Greek knowledge, and then devotes the rest of the book to European achievement.
What happened to the one thousand years of history from the fall of Rome (Rome included much of the Middle East) to the rise of Europe?
This type of cursory “brush over” constitutes intellectual dishonesty. For a much better dissertation of Discovery read Toby Huff’s Islam, China and the West.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This is only for University of Phoenix students. If you are taking History of Human Discovery HIS/458, this is the textbook and right version for the class. Do not bother spending more money and $11+ for shipping. Buy it here and save yourself $$. Better yet, buy one of the used copies for a dollar or so. Just wanted to pass this along…
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Renaissance Antiques did not send the book they promised on Amazon.com (a two-volume illustrated set with slipcase). As a replacement for they sent the a one-volume 1983 version, no illustrations and a torn book jacket that had been roughly taped together. They did not answer to my follow-up email.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I first selected this book because the gorgeous take in picture attracted my eye. If I remember correctly, it’s from a 15th century woodcut. What is shows is a tiny European town and countryside, with a man, just lifting the edge of the sky to peek out on the mysteries beyond. I immediately starting turning the pages, and couldn’t place it down. Dr. Boorstin has such a way with words, and tells his tale in such an adventure, romping through the centuries – from Greece, to Eurpoe, to China – the history is all there. I can’t possibly tell you enough how much I recommend this book. I have bought several copies for gifts. I have since bought 4 of his additional books, If you thought History was dull in class, then give it another try! Example: long before Columbus proposed taking a new route to India, many people had already believed the Planet was round. The Church suppressed the notion feeling it contradicted scripture, where it felt the Planet is described as a table. The Chinese astronomers knew the planet was round, since they had records dating far back of eclipes, where they could see the round shadow of the planet on the surface of the moon, as Planet passed between the Moon and the Sun!
*** read it *** you’ll be glad you did ***
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I reflect the book does something wonderful in the way of the leader’s concentration of material into one of several macro-categories such as the heavens, the planet, the body, and so on, before moving more painstakingly through the particulars of man’s quests to ‘know.’ Fantastic biographical touches on the major actors in the processes outlined in the book; nice chronological presentation within the aforementioned categorical construct. Liked that part.
The part that got ancient – and I mean really ancient – was the leader’s constant attempt to belittle Western achievements among the absolute paucity of – and to the near exclusion of – contributions from the rest of humanity. Take the early chapter on the progressive developments in measuring time: despite the fact that the Chinese developed a single – one, mind you – accurate timepiece in the eleventh c., and abandoned all efforts at improvement or even simple maintenance before it fell into disrepair, this example of Chinese cultural superiority is all Boorstin can talk about. (Nevermind the fact that he just finished talking about how Catholic missionaries simply needed a clock or some additional automata to wow the Chinese court into submission in the 16th century. Nevermind the fact that pious devotion to observation of religious duties ultimately drove development toward our modern clocks.) Thank goodness _1421_ hadn’t come out yet as of writing or Boorstin would have been discussing the links between Mesoamerican architecture and pantheons and persons of the Chinese.
The leader insists that Christianity – or ‘the Church’ or ‘faith,’ our leader’s favorite terms for it – consistenly acted as a check upon Western creativity and stifled development of geography, anatomy or anything else the innermost workings of which the West failed to figure out soon enough in the leader’s eyes, despite the fact that no one else was doing it – but, hey, the Khans, boy, now there’s an admirable bunch (this is our leader’s opinion). Is it their godlessness (no ‘faith’ or ‘Church’ to inhibit dialogue into what’s the best way to stink like piss or to demolish Baghdad) that Boorstin likes? Because I don’t get it. Blinded by ‘faith,’ the Western world foundered through the ‘Dark Ages’ (and haven’t medievalists successfully banished that term from academia?) and that same ‘faith’ led them on a series of evil crusades to take BACK territory taken in 1071, and they were evil, Western, avaricious thugs. But when Islam mounted up and blazed a bloody trail stretching from Iberia to the Indus Valley, it was a pious expression of their ‘faith.’ What’s with the double-standard, Boorstin?
The leader lets an august parade of Western achievement suffer from his hateful opinions. He is sickened by the final stages of the Reconquista (no, not the one in Tejas) as manifested in the state-organized Spanish inquisition (as opposed to the Church-run Italian one). Reconquest does has a root word, Mr. Boorstin. And the word is “seventh century conquest.” Stop sticking up for cultures who don’t deserve your defense. I despised to see the way his constant dislike for the Church and all things Western (ooh, quiver) marred an otherwise impressive work.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5