Ideas That Changed The World

IDEAS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD changed my world. The author gives a breathtakingly complete picture of our world and the ideas that have changed it. Nothing is overlooked. After searching high and low for an overview of the social sciences, I found a Holy Grail in this book. A real masterpiece. Thank you Felipe Fernandez-Armesto.

For years, DK from the UK has been turning out visually stimulating books using sharp layout, smart editing, and excellent photography. (For example, those large format "Eyewitness" books for kids.) They're beautiful and informative and, well, beautiful. Perversely, they've now turned to a subject that isn't necessarily visual -- the history of ideas. A total success. Full of "ah" moments, studded with "a-ha!" moments, this book is quite intelligently assembled. And, of course, it looks great. The greatest praise I can give this book is that it makes me want to run out and read more deeply. (I sort of wish that editions of this book had been published every 50 years, starting with 1600. Now those would be something to browse through.)

This is a "coffee table" book of ideas to spend a few minutes with at a time rather than a book to sit and read from cover to cover. As a kid I used to read through the World Book Encyclopedia; this book provides the same kind a service and sometimes excitement for selected important ideas that have "changed the world". Brief, concise, pointed sketches of important ideas are on target for their selection and coverage. Perhaps far from perfect, but there is nothing else nearly as good. Selected notes direct one to books to purse any idea further. Many ideas will be familiar and the short essays and photos may stimulate memories or reflection. A few will be new - or commonly misunderstood. Either way the open minded reader will learn something and be stimulated. Except for the tired cynic, most will find some intellectual entertainment and perhaps even stimulus to deeper thought.

This unique book illustrates how our world has become what it is today: by thinking and using imagination. The fundament of this book is that ideas are the driving force behind change and progress. Ideas are as old as mankind. Discoveries and inventions, economic systems and politic movements, our contact with people, animals and daily objects: all find their birth in an original idea. From cannibalism to Zen, from time to the unconscious, from pure logic to the chaos theory...The `idea' behind this book is as remarkable as it is refreshing. It all starts in prehistoric times and takes the reader on a long, but exiting trip through time. One hundred ideas are briefly discussed and presented to the reader as some fast food for the mind. Not all ideas are as natural as for example the invention of writing, but put into a boarder perspective each of them shows significant influence on the course of history. As a consequence of this book's setup every idea only takes up two pages. No one can expect that this limited coverage is enough to fully communicate what each idea really signifies. This is certainly the weakest point of this anthology. It is certainly not surprising that not everyone will agree to the interpretation of certain ideas. But at least this book gives the incentive to numerous interesting discussions. As a remedy to the compactness the author has added a `further reading' section to each idea, a gesture that is highly appreciated and that is certainly one of the main assets of this thought provoking book. A great starting point for everyone who frequently asks the question: why?

This book is an enticing mile-a-minute overview of big ideas that have influenced human history. Be careful: this is specifically a book for voracious skimmers, it is not an enclyclopedia or suitable reference for scholars. Nor does it offer an ongoing thread of analysis of topics to lend any continuity. There is a lot of real estate taken up with graphics and layout, so the text content is even more concise than might be inferred from the one or two pages devoted to each topic. This serves as a ready and accessible reference, mainly because the topics are extremely well chosen for both their timeless significance and their diversity, and the author does a very competent job of surveying most topics, in spite of their widely varying difficulty. Technical scientific ideas are handled much less well than cultural and philosophical ones, so the focus of this book doesn't really reflect the modern emphasis on science and technology to the degree some might expect. It does however do a good job of placing scientific ideas into broader cultural context. For example, discussing the Uncertainty Principle, the author almost exclusively discusses the way it has been interpreted as having significance for the macroscopic world, rather than its significance for our understanding the microfabric of nature. This accurately reflects the impact of the idea for most of us, but not its significance within physics. The blessing of this book is its brevity, and it generally offers a small reasonably good choice of sources for followup on each topic. The topics are not neccessarily treated even-handedly, since the author doesn't seem too hesitant to put his own spin on each topic, although they usually come close. It is not an overly opinionated book considering how compressed the entries are. At the very least, when a controversy is described over an idea, reasonable sources for the main protagonists are offered. That brevity is also the curse of this book for those who may be fascinated by the samplings of ideas here, but not quite want to dive into the scholarly sources often offered as further reading. It will also frustrate people very familiar with particular topics and disagreeing with what the author focuses on to make the entries concise. That's what distinguishes this for me from an enclyclopedic treatment.I would recommend this book as an excellent and exciting whirlwind tour of ideas and a painless way to learn broadly about philosophy and culture without having to read an encyclopedia, but it won't adequately replace either the original sources or the encyclopedia.