Ideas That Changed the World

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly entertataining and knowledgable
Review: Appearances CAN be deceiving. At first glance this appears to be an intruiguing coffee table book - large size, lavishly illustrated, extremely interesting, universally applicable to young and old. But upon closer reflection one notes the vast scholarship that went into this work which was obviously a joyous task for the esteemed author.

It is arranged chronologically, starting approximately 30,000 BC (I refuse to use that absurd "BCE"). What is noteworthy is that the most important, most far-reaching, the most elemental ideas came so early. For example, the notion of a spirit world, the idea of magic, of communicating with spirits, of matter....these are all concepts that we take for granted now since they are such a part of our evolutionary cultural psychology as humans.

Many ideas are still controversial - racial superiority, evolution, cosmology - but these have not been with us since the dawn of history. This is an exciting intellectual quest for our heritage in the world of ideas. What is especially gratifying is the inclusion with every two page article of particular works - one could say a mini-bibliography - with which one can delve deeper into the subject.

The work is amazingly non-parochial, putting the "human" ahead of the specific culture. That does not preclude him from listing some ideas that have particular meaning only to certain groups, such as jihad or anti-semitism. But even these limited application ideas affect groups outside the ones they affect directly. What is especially appealing is the ability to pick up the reading at the next idea. Since each is only two pages long, there is not much possibility of "losing one's place."

Rating:
Summary: Jack of All Trades and Master of None
Review: I was so excited when I first saw this book. I love reading this sort of stuff. But I was sadly disappointed when I started reading. Two pages per topic. Just two! And for most topics, over half of that space is devoted to pictures! The writing is rather disjointed and didn't flow very well. There was not enough information on any one topic to be of any real use. Some things in the book are just plain wrong. It makes me wonder if the author bothered to make use of his mini-bibliographies for each topic. How can the author presume to tell me about Christianity without once referencing the Bible? Or tell me about Islam without referencing the Quran? These should have been the first sources he turned to. Objectivity? Forget about it. There is none. The author clearly has his opinions and an agenda to promote, which does not belong in this kind of book. In all, I would have to say that the only redeeming quality of this book are the pictures (which is the last thing I was looking for). Other than that, I would have to classify this one as a miserable failure.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening and Fun Read.
Review: This book focuses on ideas thought to be important or pivotal to the development of history and humans. It's a somewhat cursory examination which is both a blessing and a burden. A blessing from the aspect that you don't get bogged down on one idea for a long period of time and also a burden because sometimes certain ideas interest you to the point where you want to read more about them. The book contains many nice illustrations and captions which tend to liven the subject and make it more alluring. The breadth and scope of ideas covered is another nice feature, however, some ideas (such as those on fascism and national superiority) tend to be overlapping and can become tedious. All-in-all though I would recommend it as a good refresher book or something suitable to get your thinking cap on.

Rating:
Summary: Good whirlwind tour of ideas, well chosen, briefly visited
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: "coffee table" book for the mind
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Fast food for the soul
Review: 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?

Rating:
Summary: shallow and simplistic
Review: What a disappointment! This book reminds me of a child's illustrated reader--it is definitely not for educated adults. The concepts are treated so briefly, and the illustrations are so large and glossy, that there is little chance of gaining insight or illumination on any topic. The publisher promised "provocative," but the provocation, sadly, is caused by the author's heavy-handed ideological slant that favors opinion over fact. The institution of "marriage," for example, is deemed out-of-date, and to illustrate that fact, we are treated to a nice, big, glossy photo of Michael Douglas and Katherine Zeta-Jones with a caption describing their need for a pre-nuptial agreement. Puleeze!