peter watson ideas a history from fire to freud

United States Government Bursary “for future world leaders” He lives in London where his interests include theatre, opera and fishing. He has published twelve books of non-fiction and seven novels, some under the pen name of Mackenzie Ford.

He has published three exposes in the world of art and antiquities and from 1997 to 2007 was a Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He returned to London to write a column about the art world for the Observer and then at The Sunday Times. He wrote the daily Diary column of the London Times before becoming that paper’s New York correspondent. From then on, the history of new ideas happened mainly in what we now call the West.'' This analysis is indicative of Watson's scholarship, and the result is a rich tapestry of intellectual and cultural life through the ages.Peter Watson was educated at the universities of Durham, London and Rome, and was awarded scholarships in Italy and the United States.Īfter a stint as Deputy Editor of New Society magazine, he was for four years part of the Sunday Times ‘Insight’ team of investigative journalists. (Watson goes as far as labeling the scientific method ''the purest form of democracy there is.'') Whereas the non-Western world once dominated intellectual spheres (The author notes that the Hindu mathematician Aryabhata calculated the value of pi and the solar year's length, determined that the earth revolved around the sun and discovered the cause of eclipses nearly a thousand years before Copernicus), Watson points to a grand-and specific-shift that changed that dynamic: ''The eleventh and twelfth centuries were a hinge period, when the great European acceleration began. The author asks the reader to approach his history ''as an alternative to more conventional history-as history with the kings and emperors and dynasties and generals left out,'' and assumes ''readers will know the bare bones of historical chronology.'' Central to Watson's approach is his belief that the scientific experiment, as it took root in medieval Europe, forever changed history's intellectual landscape. Watson presents a vast amount of information, but his greatest strength lies in his ability to make an immensely varied body of material coherent and digestible. Watson's (The Modern Mind) hefty tome distills history's greatest ideas and inventions into an impressive discourse on history's driving forces, enlivened by anecdotes and made approachable by Watson's casual, nearly conspiratorial, tone.

Peter watson ideas a history from fire to freud