Customer Reviews

A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This book is both concise AND well written. It gives a thorough compilation of all the major achievements of the human race - in the areas of science, art, technology, medicine, politics, etc....

The only poor reviews given to this book are from those who feel threatened by its anti-religious overtones. But why shouldn't it have such subtext? Has not religion and religious beliefs remained a hindrance towards the acquisition of ALL great knowledge?? Just look at how the Catholic Church has demonized great men like Copernicus and Galileo.

Anyone who believes that religion is antiquated and that factual knowledge as well as logic and truth should be held in higher regard than humanity's need for an "all knowing father-figure," should read and enjoy this book.

And for those who are still caught in the web of religion, please read Freud's "Future of an Illusion," and have the courage to drop the safety net under your feet.

The fellow gives substantial credit to the Greek and Roman contributions to knowledge, but rather than simply lauding Aristotle's achievements and recognizing the limits of some of his theories, he frequently returns to his mistakes to point out that the lack of womens rights and slavery until the last century or so are largely his fault because he believed slaves and women to be inherently inferior and the rest of civilization agreed.

Other dubious claims:

- Technology is causing people to lose touch with the pastoral ideal living standard
- Machines will one day revolt against humans and have human reasoning abilities
- Some redistribution of wealth is important
- Modern, anti-structure art forms (cubism) were progress
- Freud, Marx, Hegel, Kant, Mann, Kafka and the ilk were visionaries of truth
- Uncertainty in life is so substantial so as to make the pursuit of precision pointless
- All of the chaos / uncertainty / unknowability therorists are visionaries
- The French revolution was one of the greatest of all time

Although I enjoyed the first half of the book, I start to question its validity given the author's bias to the irrational demonstrated in the second half of the book. I become suspect that he might have omitted or misinterpreted facts in the first half as well.

A friend of mine recommended this book to me this way: "this book is like going back to school, and remembering everything you forgot. You will be taught by fabulous history teachers who will make sense out of whole of human history. Because historical events will make sense, you will understand and remember them so much better than the first time around, when you thought they were just random and boring."

My friend was absolutely right. I have been on a history kick ever since.

Charles Van Doren is really a tragic character. He is of "Quizz Show" fame. This movie described the historical events, whereby a young, attractive U of Columbia teacher (Charles Van Doren) got caught in the scandal of the TV game show 21, and was ousted of university circles for ever.

The only way he was still able to teach was through this book and others. After reading this book, you will agree he succeeded and redeemed himself.

Charles Van Doren undertook an ambitious project in this book, which according to its cover blurb purports to be 'a compendium of everything that humankind has thought, invented, created, considered, and perfected from the beginning of civilisation into the twenty-first century.'

There are, alas, a few things missing, as this book only has a bit over 400 pages. But that does not really detract from the thesis of the book; it is certainly a worthy outline of human history, particularly approached through the lens of intellectual achievement and the advance of knowledge.

Van Doren, as you may recall, is the Van Doren who got caught up in the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. Ironic that this fate should befall him, as his learning would obviously put to shame the current crop of would-be millionaires so popular on the television today. But, I digress.

Van Doren spent the two decades before writing this book as an editor for Encyclopedia Britannica. He has put together a worthy outline to knowledge, broad in scope and with just enough detail to satisfy the hunger and whet the appetite simultaneously.

'The voluminous literature dealing with the idea of human progress is decidedly a mixed bag. While some of these writings are impressive and even inspiring, many of them are superficial, perhaps even ridiculous, in their reiteration (especially during the nineteenth century) of the comforting prospect that every day in every way we are growing better and better.'

Van Doren does believe in progress, but not in inevitable progress. He distinguishes between general knowledge and knowledge of particulars, and explores the inter-relationship of knowledge and happiness:

'The desire to know, when you realise you do not know, is universal and probably irresistible. It was the original temptation of mankind, and no man or woman, and especially no child, can overcome it for long. But it is a desire, as Shakespeare said, that grows by what it feeds on. It is impossible to slake the thirst for knowledge. And the more intelligent you are, the more this is so.'

Van Doren explores the advance of knowledge by time periods, then divided into general discussions with a specific centre. I give as an example the outline of topics in the chapter entitled An Age of Revolutions

An Age of Revolutions
- The Industrial Revolution
- Human Machines and Mechanical Humans
- An Age of Reason and Revolution
- John Locke and the Revolution of 1688
- Property, Government, and Revolution
- Two Kinds of Revolution
- Thomas Jefferson and the Revolution of 1776
- The Declaration of Independence
- Property in Rights
- Robespierre, Napoleon, and the Revolution of 1789
- The Rise of Equality
- Mozart's Don Giovanni
- Goethe's Faust

Van Doren's own agenda and prejudice show through (a desire for the curbing of the rights of nation-states in favour of a one-world government, for instance -- without much detail about how that government would be constituted; after all, he is a realist who recognises that there's no point to such idle speculation in a history text), but he always returns to his charge of presenting the history of the whole through various parts.

His final chapter, entitled 'The Next Hundred Years' examines the possible developments and societal changes (which we are already beginning to see) due to computers, chaos science, increased space exploration, genetic engineering and genome mapping, and an ever-present companion in history, war.

This is a well-written exploration of world history written with clarity and style. It makes an excellent companion piece for almost any intellectual field.

WARNING!!! This book has a Western bias!!! I have wondered why it is considered immoral or abnormal for an author who lives in the West, was educated in the West and posseses a Western philosophical, religious and scientific background to have a Western bias. If all cultures were morally equivalent they would have similar outcomes and that is certainly not the case.

That aside, this is a wonderful primer on both the theory and history of knowledge. The sheer scope of the work is what makes it enticing. And the range of what he covers is astounding. It may not be as deep as one likes, nor as far-ranging, but it does accomplish its stated goal - to inform us of the long, sometimes difficult search for knowledge. I do not agree with all the author's conclusions but he backs them up; nothing is spoken or claimed in a vaccuum. Some will most assuredly disagree with the importance he places on Christianity in the scheme of things but as Daniel Boorstien has pointed out over and over, the Judeo-Christian environment encouraged thinkers and generally maintained a receptivity for original thinking not found in other cultures that remained wedded to the past. And it is undeniable that Christian Europe created a revolution of ideas that revolutionized and conquered the world in a short span.

As many have stated, the last third of the book suffers from an unavoidable problem - the passage of time. It reminds one of the oxymoron "instant analysis" which usually fulfills the former and rarely the latter. Still, despite the myopia, some of the ideas he suggests are provocative and even witty. Get a copy and enjoy.

The first two-thirds is riveting as it takes the reader from cave men to Einstein. Many ideas are discussed clearly. Thought-provoking for an amateur philosopher, like me. I enjoyed it. Good reference work.

Unfortunately, it falls down in the Twentieth Century. Apparently, it is true that an object flush against the nose allows no perspective.

Van Doren is clearly a child of the Sixties. He places all his faith in science, technological progress and education. He even defends television and pseudo-science fiction. In his view, the only salvation for man will be a dictatorship by computers. Need I say more?

Mr. Van Doren is a skilled and articulate scholar. The sort that collects a mountain of notes cards from every source conceivable, then distills the information into a very readable one-volume work. So long as his sources are brilliant, he basks in their glow. Unforntunately, an uninspired historian, unpracticed in forming his own ideas, (alas! suckled at the breast of tv commercials) is likely to leave his fly open when commenting on current events or speculating on the future.

Van Doren gives an account of history and how events have shaped our western values. This is a great read especially for a engineer who has little knowledge of the arts.

A quick succint summary of every major philosophy, religion, culture, and interesting person from the history of the world. A neat book to read for those interested. I was thrilled to ad this to my shelf and am really glad I bought it. One of the more interesting concepts in literature I have seen. If your curious, but not looking for a doctrine, this will give you the 411 without the headache.

presently i'm reading "a history of
knowledge" by van doren. 5-star reading
all the way. here's yet another book they
should make compulsory in school.

reading "H of K" makes me realize how
little i knew about basic human history. it's
a gap filler of epic proportions. essential.

thanks to van doren, i'm now looking
forward to reading all those writers
fadiman recommends in "the new lifetime
reading plan" -- lucretius, st. augustine,
the early chinese writers, and more.

when you have an HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK
in which to place these works of art, it
suddenly all becomes so much more inviting.

best of all, van doren is such easy reading!

a beautiful book.

p.s. also check out chris brazier's "the no-nonsense
guide to world history" -- very short and very sweet.

This is a sad and unnecessary book. Indeed, how anyone with the intellect of Van Doren could write such a flawed and careless piece is almost incomprehensible. To begin, his work is Western biased, leaving very little space devoted to the remarkable achievements of non-Western civilizations and cultures. Perhaps Mr. Van Doren would have benefited himself and his work by examining the works of such scholars as L.S. Stavrianos. Emanuel Wallerstein, Peter Stearns, and other world systems historians who have done much to bring the West out of its exclusionary ego. Even more shocking is Van Doren's factual inaccuracy. One key example should illustrate my point: in his discussion of the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, Van Doren mistakenly leads us to believe that the Russians attacked the Japanese, thus initiating the war in which the Russians were beaten and humiliated. Actually it was the Japanese who attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. Other factual errors can be found in several other passages of the book. Perhaps Van Doren feels that he has proven his scholarly manhood on enough occasions to exempt himself from the ardors of research, for one finds no footnotes or bibliographical information whatsoever in the entire work. A scholar such as Van Doren should not be so negligible in his endeavors. This work's most redeeming quality may very well be its service as an example of what good historical writing should not be.