The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself
Daniel J. Boorstin | 1983-10-12 00:00:00 | Random House | 747 | World
An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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 story of how humankind has come to know the world, however 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 figures and accomplishments rather than rushing on to the next set of names and dates. It's also primarily Western, although Boorstin does ask (and answer) several interesting questions: Why didn't the Chinese "discover" 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 think we know something, then we face an obstacle to innovation. The great 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 found anywhere. --John J. Miller
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This is the exact book I needed for my class. The condition was great. The wrap around cover was a little torn but that is ok. There was no writing in the book which makes it clear for my own notes.
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A wide-ranging history book on how man's discoveries in the sciences expanded his consciousness, leading to more exploration and thereby further changing and advancing civilizations. Boorstin organizes this vast knowledge from all over the world into a readable history which in the end leaves the reader in absolute awe at how far we've come and wondering how much further can we go. Separated into four Books (Time, The Earth and Seas, Nature, Society) these books are further broken down into section and sub-sections such as Making Time Portable, The Discovery of Asia, Specimen Hunting, and The Lost Arts of Memory.
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Mr. Boorstin's tome is a grand exercise in the epitome of western conceit that would have us believe that the storehouse of human knowledge began with the Greeks, skipped a few civilizations to the Romans and lay dormant until the European "renaissance". Reading this exercise in intellectual laziness would have you believe that the storehouse of human knowledge independently originated from the Greeks and just remained dormant waiting for Europe to wake from it's Medieval slumber to march the species forward again along the path of human enlightenment. This is precisely the type of Western hubris and ignorance laced Orientalism that Edward Said so eloquently discredited. Being a history of "Man the Discoverer" as he puts it in the very first sentence in the book I expected to read a holistic account of mankind's quest to discover the world around him/her. One discovers instead that "Man" in Mr. Boorstin's world doesn't count unless that Man is from the European sub-continent. He dutifully catalogs European progress to enlightenment while almost completely ignoring the contributions of the pre-Greek Egyptian, Phoenician, Persian, etc. civilizations that the Greek philosophers built upon as well as to ignore the contributions of the Chinese, Indian, and Islamic civilizations that served as the foundation for the later European Renaissance scientists. The only time he cares to acknowledge Man as other than non-European is to arrogantly and ignorantly ask "why didn't the Arabs or the Chinese think of it". There is no mention either of the independently developed storehouse of knowledge in the Americas. This book truly insults one's intelligence. It wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that Daniel Boorstin was a well educated, highly regarded "historian". If this is the type of racist dribble that can be produced after achieving the supposed apex education that is the Ivy League, I shudder to think of the long term ramifications for the future of the species.
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curious how mankind has come to where it is right now?
read your way through the most influential discovery lines of all time
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I send it is as a gift to a friend in Germany and he was pleased with the service and the book as well. thanks for that.
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