Moller brings to life the ways in which knowledge reached us from antiquity to the present day in a book that is as delightful as it is readable.” —Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads
“Superb. . . . Ambitious but concise, deeply researched but elegantly written, and very entertaining, The Map of Knowledge is popular intellectual history at its best.” —The Telegraph (UK)
“An endlessly fascinating book, rich in detail, capacious and humane in vision.” —Stephen Greenblatt, author of Swerve: How the World Became Modern
“The reader is invited to marvel at how multicultural the ancient world was, and to consider how the foundational knowledge of the Western world . . . was painstakingly preserved, analyzed, and innovated upon for almost 1,000 years.” —The Washington Post
“Fascinating. . . . A picturesque tour of a series of fabulously wealthy civilizations. . . . Moller brings the wonders of the medieval Muslim empires vividly to life and you’re left yearning for more.” —The Times (London)
“Unusual and well-crafted. . . . An impressive, wide-ranging examination of what might be called premodern intellectual and cultural geography.” —Publishers Weekly
“An epic treasure hunt into the highways and byways of stored knowledge across faiths and continents.” —John Agard, poet and judge, Royal Society of Literature 2016 Jerwood Award
“The Map of Knowledge*is an endlessly fascinating book, rich in detail, capacious and humane in vision.”
-Stephen Greenblatt, author of*The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
After the Fall of Rome, when many of the great ideas of the ancient world were lost to the ravages of the Dark Ages, three crucial manuscripts passed hand to hand through seven Mediterranean cities and survived to fuel the revival of the Renaissance--an exciting debut history.
The foundations of modern knowledge-philosophy, math, astronomy, geography-were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed.
**** Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean-rare centers of knowledge in a dark world, where scholars supported by enlightened heads of state collected, translated and shared manuscripts. In 8th century Baghdad, Arab discoveries augmented Greek learning. Exchange within the thriving Muslim world brought that knowledge to Cordoba, Spain. Toledo became a famous center of translation from Arabic into Latin, a portal through which Greek and Arab ideas reached Western Europe. Salerno, on the Italian coast, was the great center of medical studies, and Sicily, ancient colony of the Greeks, was one of the few places in the West to retain contact with Greek culture and language. Scholars in these cities helped classical ideas make their way to Venice in the 15th century, where printers thrived and the Renaissance took root.
**** The Map of Knowledge follows three key texts-Euclid's Elements, Ptolemy's The Almagest, and Galen's writings on medicine-on a perilous journey driven by insatiable curiosity about the world.
1129747640
-Stephen Greenblatt, author of*The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
After the Fall of Rome, when many of the great ideas of the ancient world were lost to the ravages of the Dark Ages, three crucial manuscripts passed hand to hand through seven Mediterranean cities and survived to fuel the revival of the Renaissance--an exciting debut history.
The foundations of modern knowledge-philosophy, math, astronomy, geography-were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed.
**** Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean-rare centers of knowledge in a dark world, where scholars supported by enlightened heads of state collected, translated and shared manuscripts. In 8th century Baghdad, Arab discoveries augmented Greek learning. Exchange within the thriving Muslim world brought that knowledge to Cordoba, Spain. Toledo became a famous center of translation from Arabic into Latin, a portal through which Greek and Arab ideas reached Western Europe. Salerno, on the Italian coast, was the great center of medical studies, and Sicily, ancient colony of the Greeks, was one of the few places in the West to retain contact with Greek culture and language. Scholars in these cities helped classical ideas make their way to Venice in the 15th century, where printers thrived and the Renaissance took root.
**** The Map of Knowledge follows three key texts-Euclid's Elements, Ptolemy's The Almagest, and Galen's writings on medicine-on a perilous journey driven by insatiable curiosity about the world.
The Map of Knowledge: A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found
“The Map of Knowledge*is an endlessly fascinating book, rich in detail, capacious and humane in vision.”
-Stephen Greenblatt, author of*The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
After the Fall of Rome, when many of the great ideas of the ancient world were lost to the ravages of the Dark Ages, three crucial manuscripts passed hand to hand through seven Mediterranean cities and survived to fuel the revival of the Renaissance--an exciting debut history.
The foundations of modern knowledge-philosophy, math, astronomy, geography-were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed.
**** Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean-rare centers of knowledge in a dark world, where scholars supported by enlightened heads of state collected, translated and shared manuscripts. In 8th century Baghdad, Arab discoveries augmented Greek learning. Exchange within the thriving Muslim world brought that knowledge to Cordoba, Spain. Toledo became a famous center of translation from Arabic into Latin, a portal through which Greek and Arab ideas reached Western Europe. Salerno, on the Italian coast, was the great center of medical studies, and Sicily, ancient colony of the Greeks, was one of the few places in the West to retain contact with Greek culture and language. Scholars in these cities helped classical ideas make their way to Venice in the 15th century, where printers thrived and the Renaissance took root.
**** The Map of Knowledge follows three key texts-Euclid's Elements, Ptolemy's The Almagest, and Galen's writings on medicine-on a perilous journey driven by insatiable curiosity about the world.
-Stephen Greenblatt, author of*The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
After the Fall of Rome, when many of the great ideas of the ancient world were lost to the ravages of the Dark Ages, three crucial manuscripts passed hand to hand through seven Mediterranean cities and survived to fuel the revival of the Renaissance--an exciting debut history.
The foundations of modern knowledge-philosophy, math, astronomy, geography-were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed.
**** Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean-rare centers of knowledge in a dark world, where scholars supported by enlightened heads of state collected, translated and shared manuscripts. In 8th century Baghdad, Arab discoveries augmented Greek learning. Exchange within the thriving Muslim world brought that knowledge to Cordoba, Spain. Toledo became a famous center of translation from Arabic into Latin, a portal through which Greek and Arab ideas reached Western Europe. Salerno, on the Italian coast, was the great center of medical studies, and Sicily, ancient colony of the Greeks, was one of the few places in the West to retain contact with Greek culture and language. Scholars in these cities helped classical ideas make their way to Venice in the 15th century, where printers thrived and the Renaissance took root.
**** The Map of Knowledge follows three key texts-Euclid's Elements, Ptolemy's The Almagest, and Galen's writings on medicine-on a perilous journey driven by insatiable curiosity about the world.
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940172046315 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
Publication date: | 05/14/2019 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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