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The Discoverers (Paperback)
by Daniel J. Boorstin
| Category:
History |
| Market price: ¥ 208.00
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¥ 198.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
A demanding, vast, heavyweight of a book is what this is - a remarkable narrative of the grand intellectual venture of humankind, rich in fascinating, dramatic details. |
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Author: Daniel J. Boorstin
Publisher: Vintage
Pub. in: February, 1985
ISBN: 0394726251
Pages: 768
Measurements: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1.4 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00779
Other information: 1st Vintage Book Ed edition
ISBN-13: 978-0394726250
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- MSL Picks -
What is the spirit of discovery? What kinds of men have embarked on this most human and lasting quest? In The Discoverers, Daniel Boorstin takes a broad and lengthy look at what it has meant to discover new things about the world and ourselves within it. The work is broadly broken into four categories. Timekeeping, geographic exploration, science, and society are the main themes respectively.
The Discoverers is a truly remarkable treatment of a selection of the individuals who at various points in history have enriched our understanding of the world by breaking free from pervasive orthodox notions.
The work is divided into four smaller "books":
- Time, deals with improvements in the calendar and clockmaking;
- The Earth and the Seas, deals with the evolution of our understanding of the large-scale physical aspects of the planet from the ancient Greeks through the "Great Interruption" in Europe when the achievements of the Greeks were forgotten in favor of religious dogma and culminating in the 15th and 16th century Age of Exploration;
- Nature, deals with astronomy through Galileo, microscopy, medicine, taxonomy, and evolution;
- Society, treats the development of printing and the rise of social science and ends in a somewhat strangely-placed chapter about atomic theory and electromagnetism.
It is of course impossible to compress the entire history of human discovery into a 700-page book, so Boorstin inevitably passes over a number of things. Some pretty major areas of inquiry receive no substantial treatment. Boorstin generally prefers discussing the earliest trailblazers in a given field rather than those who are most responsible for the full development of the field - as an example, in cultural anthropology he devotes several pages each to Lewis Morgan and James Tylor, one paragraph to Franz, and scarcely a word to anyone else. If memory serves, the only discoverers who did much of their work in the 20th century to merit even a full paragraph are Boas, Freud, and Keynes. Also, The Discoverers is fairly Eurocentric. Although substantial amounts of attention are paid to Chinese and Muslim discoverers, this attention usually functions as a means of comparison on a fairly specific matter to what was going on in Europe. Achievements in the non-European world only seldom are examined in strictly their own context and for their own sake.
But any single book on such a wide subject will have to leave out a great many deserving people, and the important thing is that Boorstin's treatment of the people he chose to treat is really excellent.
- From quoting an American reader
Target readers:
General readers
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In Boorstin's 1983 bestseller The Discoverers , the achievements of Galileo, Columbus, Darwin, Gutenberg and Freud emerged as upwellings of creativity and courage, ingenious acts of revolt against ingrained habit. This richly illustrated two-volume edition reveals the world as known to the discovers themselves. We see the tools of discovery - Egyptian obelisks, early clocks, Leeuwenhoek's microscope, Mercator's maps, botanical drawings from James Cook's voyages - and glimpse the social, cultural and political background, made concrete in 550 pictures including paintings, sculpture, engravings and architecture. A photograph of 15th-century cast bronze type from Korea underscores an Eastern invention that could have changed the course of printing, perhaps of science and culture. In a feast for the mind and eye, itself a delightful adventure in discovery, Boorstin, librarian of Congress emeritus, profiles - and places in context - scores of innovators who broke with dogma and tradition.
- From quoting Publishers Weekly
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| View all 10 comments |
Julie Hauer (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-25 00:00>
I was very lucky to have Daniel Boorstin's "The Discoverers" assigned as a textbook for an undergraduate class I took back in the spring of 1988 on European Expansion and Colonization from 1450-1750. Ordinarily, history textbooks are a bit dry. I enjoyed reading them enough to end up only one class short of a double major in History, but this one stood out head and shoulders above the rest.
For a change, the text completely held my attention. Instead of only reading the assigned portions, I read the entire book. Upon discussing this with my classmates, I learned that each of them had done the same.
Perhaps my memory is tainted because this was an overall fun class where we studied actual sailable scale models of caravels built using the actual techniques of the time. But, I recently finished re-reading the book and it was just as much fun the eighth or ninth time around. I've read it so many times that I've lost count.
The two sections that I've always found riveting are the discovery of longitude and Captain Cook muddling around Antarctica. This book is just wonderful. I only wish that the sequel, "The Creators", was just as good. I found that one to be a bit rambling. |
Luciano Lupini (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-25 00:00>
A truly wonderful book. One that should be used as a textbook in History in high school. Easily readable, it takes the reader on a voyage of far reaching proportions. What is it that makes this book so pleasurable and instructive? A fresh approach to the evolution of knowledge and science as experienced historically by the pioneers. The exploration in retrospective of the discovery of the concept of time and the clock, the compass, the telescope, the microscope and the evolutionary description of the knowledge that mankind acquired through these instruments and the bold steps of the pioneers that wondered around the seas, the cosmos, the mind, etc.. Why is it that modern culture, the different cultures and science are the way they are ? You will find a lot of answers about how this came to happen in the book by the former Librarian of Congress and senior historian of the Smithsonian Institution.
After I read this book, the promise made in the Washington Post Book World's review to it, I found fulfilled: "few indeed will be the readers who do not themselves become discoverers..." This book is one of the most outstanding discoveries that I made in my quest for knowledge. You must not overlook it. |
Fred Schultz (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-25 00:00>
Daniel Boorstin's Discoverers is a delight to read. Its sweeping theme is humanity's discovery of the natural and social world we inhabit. There are major sections that deal with the discovery of the calendar and the invention of the clock; the geographical discoveries of the 15th to 18th centuries; the natural world of astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology; and the social world of historiography and economics. An approach of this sort can't help but be anecdotal which might offend the sensibilities of many professional historians. Yet, for educated laymen (and those historians who recognize the importance of well written synthesis and popularization) the anecdotes are valuable illustrations of his theme - and great fun to read. I learned much from this book: details of the lives and work of such luminaries and Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus and Adam Smith; also of the lives of lesser known discoverers such as Aldus Manutius, Amerigo Vespucci and the Chinese explorer Cheng Ho. His bibliographic essay at the end is an excellent resource for further reading. I look forward to reading The Creators and The Seekers, the next two books in the trilogy. |
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-25 00:00>
This is a great way to learn about world history and the development of science. Without being dry or ponderous, Mr. Boorstin covers topics ranging from the measurement of time to great names in history (explorers, scientists, medical, etc.). I find myself re-reading chapters even now, after I have had the book for over 5 years. |
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