50 Big Ideas You Really Need to Know

"50 big ideas...". Well, not 49 or 51, this is I think a suspicious beginning not very intelligent. In effect, people has the fatal drive to simplify real life complexity with round numbers and perfectly packaged ideas. But yes, the 50 ideas of this book are no doubt big ideas, some for his geniality, another for his social importance, another more for other motives. The problem is many of these ideas were born many centuries ago, so we, people of today have a big obstacle, as mankind isn't by no means an isolated brain. Human beings have had in general few ideas, but much more costumes, meals, drinks, gods, rites, religions, and all these contaminates the purity of the ideas, big or little. So you can't judge rightly the social conception of Plato without living and understanding his life and times in Greece, 2500 years ago but simply, we can't do that. In fact probably we can't understand the ideas of Hitler, much more near, because we didn't lived the crisis of Germany by 1920. And so, what's one of the biggest problems today?: Fundamental Islamism. Yes, Islamism is one of these 50 big ideas. That's a religion no poor or better than any other, but the problem arrives when religious authorities joints closely with politics. This is very tempting, because is very simple and tranquilizes minds and souls. But if you get convinced your religion is the only one true and worth and that God is in your side, you don't need a complex Democracy for nothing: simply you think you are in possession of absolute truth and the rest of humanity are deadly enemies: you don't must think: you have enough in obeying the orders of God, no counting the votes and different opinions from other people. I knew this prickly problem in Spain during Franco's dictatorship, when there existed what we called with mockery, "Nacional- Catolicismo": a specially fanatic conception of Christianism, That class of religion was established in order to concede big material advantages to Spanish Catholic Church owing his supporting of Franco during the Civil War, but between other things, that delayed the development and science in Spain still more that before the war. And well, something similar I think happened in Japan before and until WW II: the conclusion is that country had to receive a tremendous defeat before they could change his way of life and thinking. Ideas are effectively sometimes, a dangerous powerful explosive.

This book provides a fantastic overview of some of the monumental thoughts and phenomena of our time. Dupre does an excellent job of summarizing and presenting these thoughts in such a manner that they're accessible even to people who haven't studied political philosophy. This is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the underlying theories of our world, and a great present for a young adult.

I picked this book up along with three others from this collection on a discount rack and have been pleased with the decision. This is an eye opening look into the shaping of our modern world that we do not consider during our day to day. We live in a free country, so we do not think of the deep debate into the term "Liberty", nor do we always consider the thought process behind the evils in the world such as fascism or racism. Grab this up and enjoy the 4 page essays, and if you are an avid reader of such material, as I am, you may not be enlightened, but you will certainly enjoy the clear presentation of the small conversations and debates that formed some of the most interesting and horrifying events in our history.