Suggested Readings: Human Accomplishment

The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
By Anthony Gottlieb
ISBN: 039332365X

"A very striking merit of the book is the way in which it is not just a parade of conclusions, as short histories often turn out to be, but an array of lucidly presented arguments. . . . Its special quality is a kind of innocence or lack of presumption. It takes nothing for granted about its readers' knowledge and credits them only with literacy and intelligence."
—Anthony Quinton, former president of Trinity College, Oxford, and former chairman of the British Museum

Art: A New History
By Paul Johnson
ISBN: 0-06-053073-8

"Johnson is unafraid of 'great man' history. In his view, art history is a story of alternation between 'intervals of canonical calm' and occasional 'climactic moments' in which radically creative innovators are thrust to the forefront. The account of these innovators—'gifted, obstinate, willful'—forms the heart of this book. It is a model peculiarly suited to Johnson's discursive style, love of the telling anecdote, and chatty biographical asides."
— Michael J. Lewis, The New Criterion

Music in Western Civilization
By Paul Henry Lang
ISBN: 0393040747

"[Lang] retained a profound affection for the cultural achievements of Western civilization. . . . Music in Western Civilization was Lang's elegy to a way of life that was being perverted and dismembered before his eyes, so the book can be read as an act of either mourning or consolation. . . . There is throughout the text a perfectly understandable tone of nostalgia, despair, and irony. It is as if Lang believed he was writing a memoir of a glorious tradition facing a moment of grave discontinuity."
—Leon Botstein, president, Bard College

A History of Invention: From Stone Axes to Silicon Chips
By Trevor I. Williams, William E. Schaaf, and Arianne E. Burnette
ISBN: 0816040729

"Williams travels the world, from the inventions of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia . . . to the Far East. . . . The author also looks closer to home, at the achievements of the Renaissance and later the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe. Williams reveals how inventions have expanded society's imagination. Thus each time a new technological breakthrough was made, it fulfilled one of society's existing needs, at the same time as fueling fresh demand for innovation and leaving the door open for the next advance."
—Helen Beasley, "Inventions that Inspire Society's Imagination," The Engineer, May 26, 2000