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Bookshop Civilisation & Exploration
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World Civilisation Some large volumes to cover a very large subject!
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Cities in Civilisation / Peter Hall
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A History of Architecture / Sir Banister Fletcher 20th Edition. Well over one hundred years after first publication, Banister Fletchers history of world architecture is still regarded as a standard work and the source book for the historical development of architecture. The author examines the historical, social and cultural factors that influenced architectural development and maintains that without a knowledge of architecture it is impossible to form a view of the thoughts and aspirations of peoples, communities and cultures. This edition is edited by Dan Cruickshank and includes new contributors, revised and re-organised text and new content on 20th Century world architecture. Winner of the International Architecture Book Award and the American Institute of Architects Book of the Century.
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The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy / Jacob Burchardt The transformation of science, the arts and society that spread throughout Europe from the city states of Florence, Rome and Venice. A 19th century narrative, superbly literate, that discusses the full implications of the growth of creative individualism and cultural evolution.
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The Stones of Venice / John Ruskin Arguably John Ruskin raised the art and architecture of Venice above all other candidates for cultural eminence in the minds of his Victorian readership. This is a usefully abridged version of the original half million words.
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Ages of Reason When Constantine the Great founded his new Christian capital in the 4th Century, the Classical world had for long been embarked on the transit from superstition to philosophy — and through philosophy to investigation of the natural world based on observation and deduction. Christianity was to deflect this intellectual effort for more than 1,500 years. In the Hellenistic east, vigorous enquiry was corrupted into fruitless theological speculation that resulted in schism after schism and the estrangement of the Eastern and Western Churches. The old rationalism was denigrated: in 529 the 1,000-year-old School of Philosophy in Athens was closed by the emperor Justinian. And within a century the east was to be threatened by a new and virulent creed that was, 800 years later, to finally overrun Constantinople. In a Rome removed from the centre of power, a decaying Senate had struggled to preserve the vestiges of paganism against the remorseless onslaught of an alien and horrifying monotheism. The Western Empire, now weakened by isolation and (in Edward Gibbon’s view) by the spread of monasticism, fell to barbarians forced into mass migration by Hunnish incursions from the Asian steppes. Christianity, sometimes in heretical form and already established in some barbarian tribes, endured; and, with more than a little irony, the surviving monasteries served as a conduit that preserved traditions of scholarship and memories of a civilised past. But scholarship was perverted into a sterile scholasticism that lacked curiosity, intellectual rigour and dynamism. In the 7th Century, as the great population movements subsided, an increasingly powerful papacy reached out across the barbarian divide to the far west, where Christianity had survived in remote communities. A united Church imposed its orthodoxy on pagan or heterodox enclaves and provided the institutional framework for a re-invented Empire, soon to be dubbed Holy Roman. Henceforward the Church was to assume a monopoly of learning, based for the most part on scholasticism and with the aim of creating a literate and educated clergy capable of promoting and justifying dogma. Morality and ethics were subsumed within an artificial structure of belief.
Flashes of light occasionally penetrated the prescriptive piety. The universities of Alcuin and Charlemagne evidenced a cultural resurgence in the west; but there was nothing to match the great cultural flowering under the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. Here Greek, Jewish and Arab scholars co-operated to preserve the great works of antiquity and to advance the disciplines of medicine, chemistry and astronomy. Medieval Islam created a repository that periodically illuminated European thought, most notably when Crusaders came into contact with the sophistication of the east; or later, when the Italian Renaissance produced a revival of interest in the Classical past and an outburst of scientific curiosity that had to look back to the 2nd Century medicine of Galen and the cosmology of Ptolemy. But all of this took place under inflexible belief-systems that constrained intellectual innovation and forced rationalism to compromise with unreasoning faith. Even after the Reformation shattered the hegemony of the Catholic Church, and as a new age of reason brightened the horizon, philosophers and scientists in the west were obliged to reconcile their findings with the religious convictions of their time and place or risk excommunication or worse. The more audacious argued for a deism that retained the idea of a prime cause while rejecting the supernatural; few were bold enough to dispense entirely with deity. But as the encroachment of science proceeded, revealed religion was itself forced towards compromise, fighting a rearguard and discarding (or at least rationalising) some of the superstition that had sustained it. Science and reason were resisted by an opposition that continually redefined the shifting ground of argument. And then there was intelligent design .
History of Western Philosophy / Bertrand Russell Probably best read as a general introduction to the subject. Russell takes on a monumental task in attempting to describe the progress of philosophy from the Greeks to the 20th century. There are, inevitably, questionable gaps and personal biases. Students of philosophy may well disagree with many of his views and analyses.
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Republic / Plato Presented in the form of Socratic dialogues, Platos Republic is a seminal work of western philosophy that resonates down to the present day. In attempting to establish the form of the ideal community, the author ranges freely across moral questions, the nature of knowledge, the role of education and the responsibilities of the individual. The result is a vision of an harmonious state ruled by philosopher kings.
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The Nicomachean Ethics / Aristotle Aristotle was a pupil of Plato who became tutor to the young Alexander the Great before returning to Athens to conduct his Peripatetic School. Here he composed works on zoology, physics, metaphysics and rhetoric, as well as originating the discipline of logic. Rationalist and polemical, his Ethics postulates happiness as the chief good for humanity and argues that virtue provides the principal path to this end. For Aristotle the ideal of virtue is the scientist in his terms, one who applies observation to all aspects of experience.
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Meditations / Marcus Aurelius The musings and maxims of the Stoic emperor, written during his campaigns against the barbarians in the late 2nd century CE. Rationalism and humanism permeate the work of an extraordinary individual who was far removed from the general run of Romes rulers in the middle centuries of the empire. Marcus Aurelius clearly regarded himself as the type of the philosopher king idealised by Plato in Republic, and his writings reflect concepts of honour and duty along with acceptance of the brevity and transience of life, with nothing to follow. -
The Consolation of Philosophy / Boethius Although a Christian, Boethius turned to Greek philosophy when imprisoned and condemned for conspiracy in the 6th Century Pavia of the emperor Theodoric. His Consolatio Philosophiae was an influence on the intellectual world of the Middle Ages and on writers as diverse as Thomas Aquinas and Dante. The dialogue between the author and the personification of Philosophy was translated into English by Alfred the Great and Chaucer. Elizabeth I is known to have made her own translation.
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Essays of Francis Bacon / Francis Bacon Elizabethan statesman and polymath, Lord Chancellor at the court of James I, Francis Bacon ranges widely across the burning topics of his day. Renaissance Man discusses the English Renaissance!
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A Treatise of Human Nature / David Hume David Hume was a leading light of the Scottish Enlightenment that brought new perspectives on fundamental philosophic, moral and economic issues. Published in 1739/40, the Treatise was an inclusive attempt to introduce a view of human nature founded in observation, rationalism and empiricism. Hume examines how concepts of causality, objective existence and identity lead to emotionally-formed beliefs, and goes on to consider the degree to which human actions can be based on freedom of choice and to analyse the nature of virtue and vice. -
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding / David Hume Eight years after completing A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume consolidated his ideas with the aim of introducing them to a European audience. These were controversial perceptions on the limitations of understanding, the appeal of scepticism and the questionable roots of religious belief. David Hume, Adam Smith and others brought Scotland into the mainstream of the wider European Enlightenment and were much admired by Voltaire.
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The Wealth of Nations: I-III / Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations: IV-V / Adam Smith Adam Smith saw the economic system as an evolutionary process and his work was firmly based in the political conditions of his own time. This might have been usefully borne in mind by more recent political economists who have interpreted Adam Smiths ideas on laissez faire, the free market and minimalist government as immutable principles that override considerations of morality and public welfare. The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, the year of the American Declaration of Independence; and one of Smiths major concerns was the control that Britain exerted over the commercial activities of its American colonies, who were denied the freedom to trade other than through the home government. Smiths belief that private property and enterprise were the engines of economic progress laid the basis for modern capitalism. His examination of the division of labour harks back somewhat to Platos Republic (qv). And there are interesting observations on the condition of the rural labouring class in Europe, only a few years before the French Revolution.
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Rights of Man / Thomas Paine The radical author and pamphleteer Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, Norfolk, in 1737. In 1774 he emigrated to Philadelphia with the aid of Benjamin Franklin. His pamphlet, Common Sense, was published and widely circulated in January 1776 and was a significant factor in the decision of the American colonies to seek independence. This important monograph was followed by The Crisis, a source of inspiration for the Continental Army. Returning to England, he completed Rights of Man in 1791 in response to criticism of the French Revolution by Edmund Burke. His liberal, egalitarian and anti-monarchist views were not well received by the establishment and he was obliged to flee to France to avoid arrest. There he was elected to the National Convention, but was imprisoned for refusing to support the execution of Louis XVI.
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The Age of Reason / Thomas Paine Thomas Paine wrote the first part of The Age of Reason in 1793 under the threat of imminent arrest and possible execution in Paris and this, his most important work, was completed in 1794. The Age of Reason was a rationalist assault on revealed religion that saw all national religious institutions as components of repressive systems of government. Paine undertook a destructive analysis of the Bible, revealing fallacies and anomalies, and tracing elements of Christianity back to their pagan origins. In dismissing myths and miracles as fabulous inventions, dishonourable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty, Paine argued for an enlightened Deism. His purist republicanism had been disappointed by the upshot of the American and French Revolutions; He saw the United States of America (the name was his creation) and revolutionary France as having fallen under the sway of powerful elites; and he took personal issue with George Washington over the latters ownership of slaves. When he returned to America at the invitation of Thomas Jefferson in 1802 he found himself almost universally ostracised for his political views and associations, and not least for his pronouncements on religion in The Age of Reason. Thomas Paine had written (in 1775) the first article in America arguing for the abolition of slavery. His contributions as one of the Founding Fathers of the Republic were considerable. His liberalism and rationalism reflected the core values of the Enlightenment. All were to be rejected by his adopted countrymen. His funeral in 1809 was attended by six mourners, two of them black. His remains were eventually to be returned to England by the radical MP William Cobbett but have since been lost. (Cobbetts Rural Rides is available from our England page.)
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On the Origin of Species / Charles Darwin . by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life a paperback facsimile of the first edition of 1859. Darwins famous work was something of a synthesis of pre-existing theories combined with his own observations as the appointed geologist and naturalist to HMS Beagle. The Beagle was commissioned by the Admiralty to undertake a mapping and geological expedition, with especial emphasis on South America. During the voyage (1832-37) Darwin studied Charles Lyells newly published Principles of Geology. Lyells theories on the age of the earth removed a major impediment to the idea of evolution as a long and gradual process. Darwins exposure to the bio-diversity of the tropics was a further factor in the formulation of an evolutionary theory. A third building block was added after Darwin returned to England, when his specimens and notebooks were circulated to a number of specialists. Richard Owen demonstrated that some of Darwins fossil finds were of extinct species related to living species in the same locality. John Gould identified that the apparently different birds from the Galapagos Islands were in fact the same species of finch, but with characteristics that were distinct to individual islands. The significance of all of this was to register with Darwin as he continued his own research. On publication, Darwin came into immediate conflict with a Church that held to belief in a fixed universe, the work of a Creator in the fairly recent past. Darwins theories have subsequently been refined and modified as the biological sciences have advanced. In some quarters these adjustments to evolutionary theory are seen as admissions of underlying error and Darwin has become a focus of the conflict between science and religion, and between rationalism and unquestioning faith. But scientific investigation is a process, not an event; and scientific hypotheses are themselves subject to evolutionary development, a fact that is conveniently ignored by the forces of religious and political reaction.
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Exploration Whether motivated by scientific interest, simple curiosity or avarice, the history of exploration provides epic tales of hardship, perseverance and ingenuity.
New Found Lands: Maps in the History of
Exploration / Peter
Whitfield
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The Travels of Marco Polo / Marco Polo The overland epic journey from Venice to the court of Kublai Khan at Shangtu (Xanadu) in China. Marco Polo passed through Persia, Tibet and India to the heart of the Mongol Empire. His insatiable curiosity and his compulsive recording of detail gave Europe its first insights into hitherto unknown regions and peoples.
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Over the Edge of the World / Laurence Bergreen Magellans 1519 round-the-world voyage in defiance of superstition and fantastic speculation and in furtherance of the commercially competitive imperatives that pitched Portugal against Spain. The expedition was plagued with calamities only one of his five ships were to return but the knowledge gained of the wider world was immense.
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The Spice Route / John Keay The insatiable demand for spices fuelled exploration, commercial enterprise and commercially-induced warfare throughout the history of the civilised world. How trade led to the transcendence of limited horizons.
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The Journals of Captain Cook
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Longitude / Dava Sobel
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The White Nile / Alan Moorehead
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Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca Vol I Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca Vol II Richard Burton Typically Victorian in his self-confidence and atypically Victorian in his lack of prudity, the explorer of the White Nile was also amongst the earliest of English Arabists. These are the journals of his exploration, in Muslim disguise, of the Holy Cities of Islam, forbidden to non-believers on pain of death. Until this time the Hejaz was virtually unknown to Christian Europe.
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The Last Grain Race / Eric Newby In 1939 the teenaged Eric Newby sailed on one of the last tall ships to make the grain run from Europe to Australia and back. The hard reality of the passages of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn is relieved by Newbys inimitable humour.
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Because Its There! A few accounts drawn from the classic years of a sport that is an end in itself, though not untainted by international rivalries.
The Mystery of Mallory & Irvine / Tom Holzel & Audrey Salkeld
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The White Spider / Heinrich Harrer
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Seven Years in Tibet / Heinrich Harrer
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Annapurna / Maurice Hertzog
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Conquistadors of the Useless / Lionel Terray
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The Ascent of Everest / Sir John Hunt
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A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush / Eric Newby
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Summits and Secrets / Kurt Diemberger
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The Snow Leopard / Peter Mathiessen
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Text & Photographs © 2006 History Unlimited & Hill House Publications
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