The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself

Knowledge Trilogy #1

by Daniel J. Boorstin

An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Philosophy, World History, History Of Science, Historical

763 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Daniel Joseph Boorstin was a historian, professor, attorney, and writer. He was appointed twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress from 1975 until 1987.

He graduated from Tulsa's Central High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the age of 15. He graduated with highest honors from Harvard, studied at Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and earned his PhD at Yale University. He was a lawyer and a university professor at the University of Chicago for 25 years. He also served as director of the National Museum of History and Technology of the Smithsonian Institution.

His The Americans The Democratic Experience received the 1974 Pulitzer Prize in history.

Within the discipline of social theory, Boorstin’s 1961 book The Image A Guide to Pseudo-events in America is an early description of aspects of American life that were later termed hyperreality and postmodernity. In The Image, Boorstin describes shifts in American culture—mainly due to advertising—where the reproduction or simulation of an event becomes more important or "real" than the event itself. He goes on to coin the term pseudo-event which describes events or activities that serve little to no purpose other than to be reproduced through advertisements or other forms of publicity. The idea of pseudo-events closely mirrors work later done by Jean Baudrillard and Guy Debord. The work is still often used as a text in American sociology courses.

When President Gerald Ford nominated Boorstin to be Librarian of Congress, the nomination was supported by the Authors League of America but opposed by the American Library Association because Boorstin "was not a library administrator." The Senate confirmed the nomination without debate.

Boorstin died in 2004 in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life can be so Monstrously Problematic. But humankind is an inveterate problem-solver.

The ‘solutions’ of the Discoverers, however, have now opened yet new ethical aporias. Cans of worms.

Some are unforgivable, but our future discoveries may assuage the pain we feel over them, God willing… and so it goes.

This is quite a fine book about the Age of Discovery.

My Dad sent it to me one Christmas around 1983, when it first appeared. He had come to understand, I think, that in my own dumb way I was a SEEKER rather than a DOER - and so he wanted to feed my heuristic seeking. So I could find my answers.

All well and good - and it is a superb and factual book - but I wasn’t looking for FACTS. I was seeking answers to my own persistent questions.

At that time, a middle manager, I didn’t fit into a management mold. I was a dreamer.

And my questions were many. How could I be accepted for myself? What can I do to show my coworkers that my own way was viable? And, if the answers remained negative - and their brick wall to my questioning persisted - how could I change myself?

Of course, the only really constructive question of those three was the last.

I had to change - by finding a Bigger Container for my questions - and, once that container was reified, fit INTO that larger mold in my everyday actions.

And that’s exactly what happened. I needed more elbow room - as do all we present or former nine-to-fivers - real room to FREELY BE A REAL PERSON.

I found that elbow room in my growing compassion and faith, having visualized those concrete options in meditation as the only viable ones.

I had to be myself and not WORRY what others thought.

But I HAD to also be a hopeful, positive person.

And, you know, if you dream Real Dreams you can make them happen.

Reification is Key.

Now, of course, this whole story for me is ancient history...

But after joining GR in 2017 I saw legions of younger folks wrestling with similar problems. Problems of Identity and Character; questions about finding real Meaning in our Life and Putting it to Work for Ourself.

So I decided to join in & add my two cents’ worth -

In your dreams and your reading you have the key.

And you know you CAN find the answers you’re looking for.

You’re fully armed:

And NOW, unlike the historical period of The Discoverers -

Your own Discoveries will never end.

[Charles Moody · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you were going on a yearlong cruise and could take only one book, this might be my recommendation. I cannot imagine where else you could find, in a single volume, such a wealth of history organized so lucidly and written so engagingly. The title might suggest that it is the story of Columbus, Magellan, etc., and in part it is, but it is far more. It describes the step-by-step advances in human knowledge in many areas, as societies began to measure time, became determined to explore and map the earth and seas, sought to catalog nature, encountered the need to record and transmit knowledge, and eventually recognized the importance of excavating and studying their own past. Even discoveries I thought I knew about became, in Boorstin’s telling, new and thrilling, because he so vividly explains and recaptures the illusions against which the particular discoverer was contending.

The book is divided into wonderfully concise chapters of about 5-8 pages, and in almost every one of them I became instantly interested in the protagonist, and awed by the courage or brilliance of his discovery. In a good number of them I either found the answer to some question I had always wondered about, or found intriguing discussion of something it had never really occurred to me to wonder about -- such as why there are seven days in a week, when nothing in nature dictates it. In whole or in parts, this book can be read and reread almost endlessly.

[Todd N · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me about six weeks to read this book because I wanted to take my time with it.

The Discoverers is a history of our attempt to understand the world and our place in it. This story of science and exploration is divided into these four books:

1. Time - how attempts to measure hours and years led to examination of the sky and development of increasingly complex machines
2. The Earth And The Seas - exploration of the globe over land and sea; the discovery of New World
3. Nature - Copernican system; telescope and microscope; medicine; The Royal Society; Newtonian physics
4. Society - Books, manuscript and printed; History, prehistory, and archeology; Economics and sociology; Post-Newtonian physics from atoms to electromagnetism

The Discoverers covers a lot of different topics, but they are arranged in a way that the concepts and events build throughout the book. For example, long ocean voyages aren't practical until the clock is perfected. Also, a theory of evolution isn't possible until geology extends the age of the Earth far beyond the traditional age of a few thousand years.

The focus is mainly on The West, meaning Europe and America, but there are also sections explaining how other cultures (mainly China and Islam) were an influence on events or why what was happening in the West wasn't happening there. I just noticed that this book was published in 1983, which I think is before the emphasis on multiculturalism was mainstream, so it might disappoint (or even offend the more delicate) people who expect a more multicultural and global focus from a historical overview.

So much is covered in this book that it would be impossible to summarize. The stories that I was already familiar with -- Newton, Galileo, Darwin -- are already covered here. More interesting are the lesser known or even anonymous people who worked to illuminate our world. Looking back on this book, I noticed three interesting themes.

1. Being right isn't really necessary to push back the frontiers of knowledge. Columbus didn't understand what he discovered. Newton spent the last years of his life trying to create a chronology for the events in antiquity, including Greek legends. He wasn't successful, but his idea of using astronomy to date events eventually led to a chronology being created. Schliemann didn't find the city of Troy or Agamemnon's grave, but dramatic reports of his attempts almost singlehandedly popularized the new field of archeology.

2. The biggest obstacle to knowledge in a field is not ignorance but the existence of an already widely held understanding in that field. The influence of the ancient Greek physician Galen on anatomy is the most striking example. It turns out that Galen based his anatomy on inferences drawn from dissection of monkeys because dissection of human cadavers was forbidden. But his texts were authoritative for over fourteen centuries. Ptolemy has a similar influence on cartography and astronomy. Aristotle, of course, influences just about everything else. And then of course there is The Church. Even when not actively blocking progress, it still provides such a complete structure for the mind that it is almost like a mental prison that very few are able to escape from.

3. Lack of formal education doesn't preclude one from making significant contributions. It may even be advantageous to be an outsider. Paraclesus, who laid the foundation for disease theory, didn't have a medical degree. Faraday's insights into electromagnetism were probably possible because he wasn't formally trained in the math of Newtonian physics. Thomsen's was able to discern separate Stone, Iron, and Bronze ages because his mind wasn't influenced by the inaccurate academic theories of the day. However, everyone mentioned in the book -- credentialed or not -- read and worked constantly.

I was also happy to finally learn the name for the mythical creatures who had faces in their abdomens: Blemmyae. I saw an illustration of one of these a long time ago in a history book but was unable to find a picture again. But now I have twenty or so drawings to use as an avatar.

If you are curious about how we know what we know I would recommend reading this book.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

This theme based history of how the modern world came to be is so much more engaging than the typical geopolitical event based history. Rather than learning about battles, kings and politicians we learn how ideas pursued by innovators shaped our culture. Boorstin shows us how these creative thinkers were helped or more often held back by political, religious and cultural forces and in turn how their ideas changed these forces. This wide ranging book begins with man’s first discovery, time, and from there goes on to man’s discovery of the earth, nature and the functioning of human society. Boorstin takes us right up to the start of the twentieth century and along the way treats us to captivating vignettes of visionaries who radically altered our perceptions, many of whom I learned about for the first time or in a new way. The notes below touch on some of the topics I found most interesting.

Since the dawn of civilization, man has depended on his understanding of the seasons. Boorstin takes us from the first primitive calendars to the invention of the mechanical clock in the 14th century. Now people could live from hour to hour. This also led to the idea of a clockwork universe. With the 17th century invention of the pendulum clock we could live from minute to minute. The 18th century invention of the chronometer which kept accurate time on pitching and rolling ships meant longitude could be accurately calculated. Now we knew where we were even in the middle of the ocean. The first steps on the path to our current hectic lives had been taken.

In the second century the great Ptolemy provided the first scientific maps of the known world even estimating the earth’s circumference and the Asian landmass. He underestimated the circumference by 15% and extended Asia way too far east which would delude Columbus when Ptolemy’s geography reappeared in the West in the fifteenth century. With the Middle Ages came maps that relied on myths and bible references rather than ancient knowledge or actual experience. Thus in Christian Europe exploration beyond known bounds was considered dangerous as some evil would be lurking. Boorstin points out, “The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the ocean was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” As he notes, “More appealing than knowledge itself is the feeling of knowing.” Christian Europe was in the Great Interruption lasting from the fourth to the fourteenth century.

The Mongols opened the West’s eyes to the East in the thirteenth century. When their empire faded, the Turks and Arabs blocked the way. Thus Europe was shut out of Asian trade until the Portuguese in the fifteenth century found their way around Africa launching the age of discovery. The Portuguese efforts were methodical whereas Columbus’ voyage was a crapshoot. Grossly underestimating the distance to Asia, he was lucky America was there. Columbus never got past the prevailing religious, mythical and Ptolemaic preconceptions about the earth’s geography. After many voyages to the New World he never recognized it as such, still thinking he had found islands off the Asian coast. Amerigo Vespucci who explored most of the east coast of South America, did realize he had found a fourth continent and documented it. He not only saw through the errors of current maps but noted the vast numbers of new species. He reasoned that Noah could not have gotten them all on the ark becoming a heretic. After Amerigo Vespucci’s early death from malaria, a subsequent map independently published based on his notes named the continent after him.

Just as with the discovery of new lands, the discovery of the macro and microscopic realms were inhibited by the doctrinaire Church, the widespread presumption of already knowing, and reliance on intuition. Thus when the telescope and the microscope came along to expose new dimensions their revelations were challenged. Most notably was Galileo’s inquisition and imprisonment for advocating heliocentrism. Galileo’s observations supported Copernicus’ model of the solar system. However, it took Kepler in the early seventeenth century to lay the foundation for modern astronomy with his laws that explained the planet’s orbits.

Galen and Dioscorides developed new ideas about medicine in the first and second centuries but even into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries medical students simply took these ancient writings as bible rather than develop new ideas themselves. Paracelsus in the early sixteenth century would lead in new ways of thinking about medicine, embracing chemistry and exploring new mineral and botanical remedies. Later that century Santorio Santorio would use a new strategy, measurement. He crafted devices to measure pulse and temperature. He even weighed everything that went into and out of the body, initiating the study of metabolism. In the early seventeenth century William Harvey overturning Galen correctly identified the functioning of the circulatory system. Completing Harvey’s work was Malphigi who used the microscope to discover capillaries. By the seventeenth century medicine was no longer bound by the notions of the ancients.

The seventeenth century was also the turning point in physics and mathematics. Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist of all time, was adulated for his discoveries rather than imprisoned like Galileo who died the year Newton was born. Scientists were fighting each other as often as the Church, the intense conflict between Leibniz and Newton being a case in point. To avoid state and church censorship and establish authorship, the Royal Society under Henry Oldenburg began accepting letters documenting discoveries and publishing them in journals. He initiated peer review and the organized sharing of scientific information.

In the eighteenth century biology stepped forward with the classification of plants and animals by Carl Linnaeus who created taxonomy and John Ray who was the first to scientifically define the term species. Also that century the Comte de Buffon gave credibility to the idea that the earth was far older than 6,000 years. Meanwhile Edward Tyson founded comparative anatomy and showed that a man and chimpanzee had more in common than a chimpanzee and a monkey. Such discoveries paved the way for Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace to revolutionize man’s view of himself. Throughout the book Boorstin shows that the breakthroughs of eminent scientists like Darwin usually are the culmination of the contributions of many predecessors.

Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press not only spread knowledge but changed how language itself was used. From manuscripts numbering in the thousands before Gutenberg printed his bible, within 50 years there were ten million books in print. Prior to Guttenberg, scholarly texts were written in Latin. Universities across Europe conducted classes in Latin. The general populace spoke local dialects. There were no national languages in Germany, France, England, Italy or anywhere else. An Englishman from Kent could no more understand one from London than a Frenchman from Paris. Books printed in vernaculars became instrumental in establishing the dialect that would become each nation’s formal language which in turn would help form a national identity.

The art of history was rediscovered in the Renaissance. For the first time since Herodotus the idea emerged that history should be built from independent facts not simply reported in terms of religious dogma. Then in the 18th century came the concept of prehistory, that there was human life before the 6,000 years presented in the Bible. This discovery enabled a new idea, the idea of human progress. In the sixteenth century Francis Bacon formulated empiricism and the idea of scientific progress. But it waited until the nineteenth century for the concept of cultural progress to be explored: Heinrich Schliemann and Johann Winckelmann established archeology; Christian Thomsen and Jens Jacob Worsaae created the concept of prehistoric time periods (stone, iron, etc.); Lewis Henry Morgan pioneered anthropology; Edward Tylor founded cultural anthropology taking on Christianity’s traditional characterization of indigenous peoples as degenerate; Adam Smith founded modern economics with the idea that wealth was more than just gold and silver; Karl Marx established the revolutionary idea of material progress.

All of the above may seem like too much to cover in one volume, but it is well done and thoroughly enjoyable. We see the connections, each new idea leading to others often in different fields. We see how our modern conception of the world came to be. We see the vast scope of our knowledge base. We see how after being repressed for over a thousand years, there was a furious explosion of scientific discovery. We see how human society remained stuck in place through the illusion of knowledge and how recent is the image of the world we have today. If you find these topics appealing, this is the book. Highly recommended for those interested in a comprehensive history Western discovery and innovation.

[Miloš Kostić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Potrajalo je, ali je bilo vredno truda.
Sjajna knjiga, napisana izuzetnim, vrlo čitljivim, čak književnim stilom. Toliko pitko da može da se čita satima bez zamaranja, što je nekarakteristično za stručne knjige. A opet, obilje informacija nameće želju da se iz nje uči kao iz udžbenika.
Ovo Geopoetikino izdanje je štampano veoma sitnim slovima. A debela je! Izgubih oči.
Istorija nauke, više je istorija nego nauka. Bavi se uglavnom, ako ne i isključivo, onim otkrićima koja su promenila ljudsko shvatanje sveta. Od kalendara i sata do jezgra atoma.
"Večna tajna sveta jeste njegova shvatljivost", rekao je Ajnštajn. Kada su ljudi počeli da uviđaju da iza raznih čudesa u prirodi postoje pravila i da su ona ta koja upravljaju svetom, konačno su krenuli na dalek put, dalje od poezije, filozofije i "religijskih istina". Začeci nauke su se desili kada su ljudi počeli da kvantifikuju stvari, vreme i događaje. Početni izumi u tom smislu jesu kalendar i sat, oni su poslužili da se vreme podeli na jednake delove i da se uvide neke kosmičke pravilnosti.
Jasno se vidi da ljudski napredak u suštini predstavlja bežanje od religija koje su nudile neproverene istine po kojima su ljudi morali uređivati svoj svet. Religija podrazumeva poštovanje autoriteta bez premišljanja. Teologiju su dodatno pojačavali folklor i "zdrav razum", tj. "logičko razmišljanje". U tome su najjači bili Grci koji su učinili mnogo u svoje vreme, ali je kasnije njihov uticaj bio poguban. Njihova učenja su se prenosila kroz čitave epohe u srednjem veku i, pošto su se poklapala sa hrišćanskim dogmama, bila su neprikosnovena.
Tek u vreme kada ljudi više nisu mogli tako lako da budu optuženi za saradnju sa đavolom ako, na primer, koriste kompas ili teleskop započelo je veliko Doba otkrića. Tada se pojavio njegovo visočanstvo - dokaz. Iako je vera u moć nepomognutih ljudskih čula i dalje otežavala prihvatanje novonastale nauke, stvari su se vremenom uredile na srećan način. Monopol i ekskluzivnost znanja su se sa pojavom štampanih knjiga urušili, latinski nije više bio jedini jezik učenih, obrazovanje je učinilo svoje i... Stvari više nikad neće biti iste.
Jedan od bitnijih obrta u istoriji ljudske misli bilo je otkriće da je čovečanstvo s vremenom napredovalo, a ne nazadovalo (od vremena rajskog vrta) kako su tvrdili teolozi. I dan-danas može da se čuje kako su ljudi u prošlosti, na primer, duže živeli. Lično sam ovo čuo nekoliko puta. Ovakve stvari dokazuju da ima još mnogo da se ide, i da kritički duh još uvek nije dopro do svih, uprkos svemu što nas, između ostalih, uči i ova knjiga.
Preporučujem je svakome koga interesuje istorija nauke, kao i "velika slika".

[Jlawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good LORD it took me a long time to finish this book. Not because of the writing - Boorstin's good at relating history though clear, lively anecdotes. And it's long, but the delay was mostly because of the *size* - I have the 'deluxe illustrated edition' which is two hardback volumes filled with beautiful illustrations. I recommend this edition for the fantastic visual context it gives for the huge sweeps of history Boorstin surveys. I do not recommend this edition for its size & bulk, which is not anything you can comfortably read in bed or easily cart around with you. I finally finished because I broke down and lugged it on my commute (my main reading time).

The book itself is an ambitious survey of advances that lead to greater and greater precision of describing the world in scientific terms, divided somewhat arbitrarily into four sections - "Time", "The Earth and Seas", "Nature" and "Society." Boorstin illustrates this progress through colorful biographical sketches of individuals who contributed to these advances, with some asides for analysis and historical what-if questions.

There's much to criticize. It's certainly Eurocentric (but not absolutely - for instance, there's some very interesting stuff about the religious and cultural tolerance of Genghis Khan's Mongol empire, despite its 'barbarian' reputation). Boorstin's reliance on biographic sketches of 'men of genius' sometimes neglects the broader social context that lead to the discoveries, and sometimes neglects detailing previous advances a particular discoverer was drawing upon. It ends abruptly, with only a tiny gesture towards the huge & complex advances of the 20th century.

I also suspect the more one knows of the history of science, and especially the more one knows about a particular field/individual discussed here, the more one might be annoyed with Boorstin's summaries. So as an overall history of 'discovery', it probably ranks as three stars. But since there was *much* I did not know that was here, I was happily bookmarking many pages, and thankful for the huge list of references and suggested further reading at the end.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel divided on this book. I really enjoyed large chunks of it, and really appreciate the depth of knowledge and information found here. I also feel the overall tone and context in which it is presented is narrowly eurocentric and limiting. It looks at the history of the world through the lens of white european men and their accomplishments. It related almost everything to them. It sees colonialism as progress, slavery and subjugation, although evils, as ways toward new discoveries. Women are almost entirely absent from its pages. Florence Nightingale is mentioned briefly as someone who took up the science of statistics, but nothing is said of her. With a lens such as this, I found it hard to read at times. The content of the information was wonderful and he makes some very good observations, but others I found very problematic.

[Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorite books. I bought it as an ‘airport’ book for a long flight in about 1985 and could not put it down. My old paper back , dog eared and extensively annotated finally fell apart earlier this year so I bought a second hand hard cover and went on annotating. I have read it three times from cover to cover and several more times in bits and pieces.
Boorstin documents in wonderful conversational and personal prose the historical process of discovery of the heavens , earth and man - of himself and his place in the cosmos . The focus is on this process in the west mostly through science and technology , with some passing reference to philosophy and religion. ( He addresses themes such as philosophy and art in the companion volumes The Seekers and The Creators. )
The author has been crtitcised for his concentration on the west . I feel this misses the point that it was Boorstin’s aim to tell the story from the western perspective and that is what he has done. Not that he ignores other major cultures with many references to Islam , India and China.
It can also be argued that the book takes on too much and consequently has to leave out too much. However , this is not a conventional history but a sweeping view across more than 2000 years with many of the authors personal opinions and areas of interest providing the necessary stimulating examples to carry this multi layered narrative forward . This is not comprehensive history but a well balanced narrative. You might debate over what he has or has not included but the theme of discovery and progress rolls on.
If it was possible I’d certainly give it more than 5 stars.

[Jennifer (formerly Eccentric Muse) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three-and-a-half stars for the book itself, which presents the history of human thought in chapters that detail the world's greatest discoveries, scientists and thinkers from astronomy to geography to psychology to religion and dozens of other points in between.

I round my review up to four for the fact that my copy is dog-eared and falling apart because it was my late father's favourite book. He was an armchair traveller and pursuer of knowledge who was curtailed only by his life's circumstances from being an adventurer and discoverer himself.

Dated now, and certainly not as high-falutin' as some other scientific treatises out there--but as erudite as it is accessible; expansive in scope but still a user-friendly introduction to what can often be intimidating subjects.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea this Boorstin guy was well known when I stole the beat up old book from my family's bookshelf for my own perusal. I was pleasantly surprised the entire time, amazed that what I thought was a run of the mill shelf filler would be so consistently interesting an engaging. It's a neat book, one worth reading - it's been a while now and I don't remember most of what is in there, but I can tell you that I'll never think of clocks the same way again.

[Tuyet Lan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quyển sách này khiến mình thay đổi hẳn cách đọc. Thường thì một cuốn sách mình sẽ đọc liền tù tì đế hết thì thôi. Quyển dưới 400 trang thì đọc một tối, dài hơn thì đọc trọn một ngày. Nhưng gặp Những nhà khám phá (The Discoverers) này với 750 trang khổ 17 x 25 cm - kít - rịt chữ này thì mình phải chia ra đọc suốt 3 tuần lễ. Thỉnh thoảng phải nghỉ giữa chừng - chuyển sang đọc cuốn khác. Mỗi tối đọc tầm 30 trang, vừa đọc vừa search để tìm hiểu thêm về phát minh hoặc nhân vật được đề cập trong sách, ví dụ như chiếc đồng hồ lớn nhất thế giới, bản thảo giải phẫu đầu tiên... Lúc đọc cũng ước gì sách có luôn hình minh họa, nhưng nhìn vào độ dày của sách thì tự nhủ: "Thôi tự search cũng được, thêm ảnh vào nữa chắc không nâng nổi sách lên mất" :))


Nâng được cuốn sách nên bằng một bàn tay để chụp ảnh thiệt vất vả hết sức :))

Sách được chia làm 4 quyển: Quyển 1- Thời gian; Quyển 2- Trái Đất và Biển cả; Quyển 3- Tự nhiên; Quyển 4- Xã hội. Mình thích Quyển 1 và 2 với lối viết như kể truyện thần thoại, sự kiện lịch sử hấp dẫn và giọng văn dí dỏm. Quyển 3 và 4 thì gấp gáp trình bày các phát kiến và một loạt danh nhân, nên thành ra hơi thiếu chất văn học. Dẫu vậy nhìn tổng thể thì đây là một cuốn bách khoa rất hấp dẫn. Mình thực sự thán phục năng lực của tác giả - khả năng hệ thống các phát kiến không chỉ trải dài từ cổ đại đến cận đại mà còn phủ khắp các châu lục, sự tìm tòi đối chiếu các nghiên cứu trước đó và so sánh các ngôn ngữ. Với sức viết khủng khiếp, tác giả đã đưa ra một bức tranh toàn cảnh về những bước chân đầu tiên của loài người khám phá mảnh đất khoa học. Từ các khoa học khám phá vũ trụ và thế giới tự nhiên như: thiên văn học, địa lý, vật lý, cơ khí, hóa học, đến các khoa học về con người: giải phẫu, sinh vật học, ngôn ngữ học, khảo cổ học, nhân học, kinh tế học, thống kê học, và cả lịch sử ngành in ấn- "nghệ thuật lưu giữ mọi nghệ thuật".

Đọc giả thời hiện đại có thể có chút ghen tị với những người được sống ở thời đại khám phá này - thời đại khẳng định vị thế kì vĩ của con người - chia nhỏ giờ giấc, làm chủ bầu trời và đại dương, khám phá và đặt tên những vùng đất mới, lập danh mục và đặt tên cho muôn loài, đặt tên cho các lực; vươn xa khám phá từ vũ trụ rộng lớn đến những vi sinh vật li ti; từ ngoại cảnh đến bên trong cơ thể con người. Không còn phụ thuộc vào may mắn và tâm linh, con người đã chủ động quản lí được thời gian, không gian, vị trí đứng và cuộc sống của mình tại Trái Đất này.



Có thể cần nhiều người để phát hiện và chứng minh chân lý. Nhưng luôn cần một người tiên phong đứng mũi chịu sào để phát biểu về phát kiến đó. Những chân lý của thời hiện tại như thuyết nhật tâm, kinh độ vĩ độ, cách tính ngày giờ, số lượng các châu lục, hoạt động của hệ tuần hoàn, khái niệm loài... thì ở thời cổ đại và cận đại được coi là đích khám phá và chứng minh. Người đọc sẽ rất ngạc nhiên khi biết loài người phải mất nhiều thời gian và công sức như thế nào để tạo ra được 1 chiếc đồng hồ bánh răng, một chiếc la bàn, công nhận Dương lịch...; biết bao nhiêu mạng sống đã mất đi để có được 1 tập atlas thế giới và để xác định được đúng vị trí của Trái Đất trong hệ Mặt Trời. Chính nỗi sợ vô cớ và thói bảo thủ khiến con người tự trói mình vào hiểu biết hạn hẹp. May là khát khao tri thức đã chiến thắng.

Các phát kiến được đề cập đến trong sách được và bị ảnh hưởng nhiều bởi tôn giáo, công nghệ, kinh tế và chiến tranh giữa các quốc gia và dân tộc. Mình nhận thấy sự đầu tư của quốc gia và Thiên chúa giáo cho việc giáo dục và nghiên cứu tại các nhà thờ/ tu viện dẫn đến ra đời các tầng lớp tinh hoa tri thức ở đây. Những nhà khám phá nổi danh trong giai đoạn trung- cận đại nếu không bồi dưỡng từ các nhà thờ/ tu viện thì cũng từng theo học các trường lớp của giáo hội. Điều này cho thấy việc giáo dục ảnh hưởng rất lớn đến sự phát triển thi thức của con người. Nếu giáo dục mở rộng ra ngoài giới hạn giáo hội, thì đại bộ phận quần chúng nhân dân sẽ có cơ hội phát triển trí tuệ và đem đến thêm nhiều phát kiến hơn. Điều này đã được minh chứng ở các thế kỉ tiếp sau này.

[M.G. Bianco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classical Conversations, for whom I tutor, uses this text for its 12th grade (Challenge IV program). There are two things I really like about this book.

1. It tells the history of scientists and discoverers in the form of a story. It draws you into the story and develops the same spirit of inquiry the discoverers themselves would have experienced as they set out to discover.

2. It is biased. I am so weary of history books that pretend to be unbiased when they aren't. This books is unabashedly biased, but you know he is biased and you know what that bias is. You don't have some author trying to pretend he isn't biased, which really means he is trying to subtly teach you his bias. This bias is in your face. It isn't always a bias I agree with, but you know its there and you deal with it as it comes.

Boorstin writes about world history in an interesting and engaging way. I love the fact that he loves humanity for its passion to discover, and attempts to pass that passion on to his readers. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and teaching from this book.

[Luke Waters · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who makes history book not in chronological order? God does... also Daniel Boorstin. Why? Because he thinks he's God? I wouldn't underestimate his ego so much to not leave thay possibility open. He transitions between Marx back to Gutenberg, then up to Einstein, then back to Adam Smith with no clear rhyme or reason. His sentiments against the Christian church are consistently evident. Darwin shows up a plethora of times throughout the book for the expressed purpose of being defended from the big, bad evil church. Boorstins' weak attempt at seeming middle of the road reveals itself through his strange love for the tolerant and freedom loving... Mongolian empire of violence. Hey, though, maybe this disorganized disconjointed attempt at history is just too above my unenlightened mind.

[Ali Naderzad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book in chunks. It’s intensely rich in facts. Basically if you want to know about mankind and the world, read this book. The part about clocks is awesome. Water clocks, at trials in the antiquity to limit lawyers’ speaking times, other types of clocks. You find out that measuring time was not easy and yet it was essential to the affairs of men. I’ll update this space when I’m finished with the book.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neither deep nor systematic, this popular history of human discovery is still a fun, albeit anecdotal, read.

[Paulcbry · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely interesting book which covers a lot of ground. It starts out with the Roman calendar and ends with a discussion of Faraday.

[Tabi · Rating 2 out of 5]

FINALLY

[Jamie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is history on a grand scale, covering vast distances of time and space, from the first attempts at a calendar to the dawn of quantum theory. The famous names are here, Ptolemy, Galileo, Newton, and the rest, but also many who are lesser known but nevertheless made important contributions to our understanding of the world and our place in it.

The book is divided into four main sections: Time, Earth and the Seas, Nature, and Society, and within each are chapters focusing on a single person or the development of a single idea. The book amply illustrates the concept of “you don’t know what you don’t know.” When people lived by seasons it never occurred to them that knowing the hour might be useful. Once it became helpful to divide the days into equal hour increments clocks were invented, but the first ones showed only hours because there seemed to be no reason for anyone to know which minute it was. And then, once time could be told to the minute, accuracy started to be important, and the race was on to make additional improvements. This led eventually to the development of chronometer. On its first seagoing test in 1761 it was found to have lost only five seconds on an 81 day voyage, which meant navigators could find their position to within one mile anywhere on the vast oceans (Dava Sobel’s Longitude is a well written account of the chronometer’s development).

Another important factor in the history of ideas is that sometimes the biggest hindrance to discovery is a pre-existing system that works satisfactorily for most purposes. It seems to be a constant in human nature that discoveries harden into dogma, so that Ptolemy’s astronomy, Aristotle’s science, and Galen’s physiology became unquestionable authorities. Finding alternatives could be hazardous to one’s health, as Galileo discovered when he was hauled before the Inquisition (Giorgio de Santillana’s The Crime of Galileo brilliantly explains the people, the society, and the controversies that led to his condemnation). It has become a truism that there are three stages in the life of a new idea: first people ridicule it; then they oppose it; then they say it was self-evident all along.

The sheer number of topics covered in this book is amazing and shows how ideas are linked together in a great chain, and how random events in history have great and unexpected consequences. The Mongol conquests opened up an overland route to Asia, with the prospect of vast riches. After about a hundred years the empire fragmented and the route was closed, so there were strong incentives to find a sea passage to the East. Portugal exploited this opportunity, sending expeditions progressively farther south along the west coast of Africa until they discovered that there was a route to India, contrary to the ancient maps which held that the Indian Ocean was a sea enclosed on all sides by land. The opening of trade also meant the beginning of western exploitation of Asia. On Vasco da Gama’s first trip he was met cordially by the local ruler, who gave him a letter to Portugal’s king offering to open trade. On his second voyage he had a letter from his own king claiming all the Indies as Portuguese possessions. When the Indian ruler was slow to respond da Gama captured a number of local fishermen and sent their dismembered bodies to the king to help him make up his mind. Western civilization had arrived.

Each of the dozens of topics covered in the book are placed into their scientific, historical, and cultural context: map making, optics, anatomy, calculus, the printing press, evolution and the concept of pre-history, chemistry, physics, astronomy, and on and on and on. If there are significant discoveries that the author missed, I can’t think of any. Being a discoverer is about courage and persistence as much as just having a great idea. This book brilliantly describes how far we have come and how fast we have moved. In these troubled times when it sometimes seems that the future looks irredeemably grim, this book is a hopeful reminder that sometimes we can find solutions to what seem impossible problems.

[Marfita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, phew. This only took me 6 weeks. Mostly because, as much as I was enjoying it, the material is pretty dense and requires thought, digestion - who'm I kidding? I'm lazy. Shogun was 1200 pages and I read it in six days.

But I really did enjoy it. The section on Time was really eye-opening. You have to invent Time to invent a watch. It's a process. And to need a watch, you need a reason for Time to be cut up in those pieces. This is of particular interest to me for dealing with the watchmaker analogy/thingie. If there is a watch, there must be a watchmaker. No. The workings of a watch are based on previous technology - metallurgy, mechanisms, and, so it turns out, even the need for a flippin' watch!

What this book does is show that everything evolves. All knowledge is built on the sugar cube blocks of what is known before. And sometimes someone comes along with a brick, and you have to redo from start and use bricks. There's no real point to going back to sugar cubes after you've used bricks, but the cubes are still interesting. Of course, something better than bricks may come along as well.

From Time, the book moves on to Geography, and more than just if the world is flat, round, or riding on the backs of four elephants on the back of a giant tortoise. Then there is Nature - if you want to discuss a particular plant or animal, how do you know you are discussing the same ones someone half the globe away is? Again, a need arises and it eventually leads to heresy. Oh dear. The last section is on Society: writing/printing, history, and the grab-bag of evaluating the present. I got bogged down in the last bit. I had already read a history of newspapers and an expansion on that was fine. I have read Herodotus and Thucydides in my halcyon youth (haha!) when I should have been more involved with sexual experimentation probably. The parts on economics should have interested me more, but by this time I was tired of the book and looking forward to the "Some Reference Notes" which turned out to be a chatty and enthusiastic bibliography. Great, just what I need: more reading that will make me sexually unattractive ... again.

[Stuart Lutzenhiser · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin, published in 1985, is a solid, thoroughly researched and well documented series of 82 essays on the history of human discovery. Some of these discoveries are physical, such as the New World or the trade route around Africa. Some of the discoveries are scientific such as the Calculus, the atom, or Evolution. For me, the book has two aspects that set it well above similar works on scientific history. That is, an exploration of how we discovered things that one might not normally think of as a discovery, such as the measurement of Time, or how did the idea of divisions in pre-history into Stone, Bronze and Iton ages develop. How did we start to measure Time? This is a fascinating subject and one in which Boorstin indulges enough space to make a decent foray into the subject. The other novel aspect of the book is the occasional discussion of "why not them?". Why didn't the Chinese or Islam invent the movable printing press? They had better and more advanced technologies in printing and in paper production long before the west, but it took Gutenberg to invent it. "Why not them" is at least as interesting (if not more) a subject than why Gutenberg did invent it. Even though 25 years has passed since its publication, the work does not seem to show its age as Boorstin's positions his text in a manner to transcend our current period. Many of these essays will be just as interesting to readers 50 or 100 years from now.

[Ian Beardsell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as a gift from my parents about 40 years ago, near the end of my high-school career. It made a fine impression on me then, and it did again in my recent re-reading!

Daniel Boorstin was the Librarian of Congress when he authored this tome, which is an awesome, all-around tour of humanity's history of discovery. Rather than a didactic chronology of events, Boorstin takes us on a meandering adventure of how people figured out the world around them via the measurement of time, exploring the seas, cataloging geography and nature, evolving ideas of economics and social systems, and even down to the development of social sciences that explore humanity itself.

Back as young adult, this book served me well as an overall introduction to history and the development of human thought and the sciences, and I believe readers today would still find it so. The author has a knack for providing you with key details and names involved with key moments in our history when we made discoveries and jumps in our progress, without making it a tedious information dump. I see now that Boorstin wrote this as part of a series, so I am curious to see if I can find the others at my local library in the hope that his narrative style likewise complemented his treatment of his other related subjects.

[Davis Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easily one of the finest history books I’ve read. Boorstin’s concept of a sweeping epic of discovery seems highly ambitious, but the cohesion and universality in his exposition is a truly laudable achievement. I can see him being criticized for incompleteness and Western bias, but his focus on the major people and events of the intellectual, scientific, and cultural landscape keeps his work together and the flow uninterrupted, alternating chapters consisting of mini biographical sketches and elaboration of deeper ideas. His opinions do tend to dilute the book at times. Boorstin has an interesting and eclectic approach to historiography that is a cross somewhere between pragmatism, progressivism, skepticism, and libertarianism (the first term is probably most accurate), and some parts are decidedly either factually incorrect or misrepresented; especially the tired “Dark Ages” myth that a historian of his caliber should know better than to propagate. However, his prose is crisp, breezy, and inviting. Especially fascinating to me were the portions on time, expansion to the East, medicine, and the whole fourth part on society. It’s the rare long read that is simultaneously interesting and meaningful, and I’m looking forward to checking out some of Boorstin’s other work this summer.

[Pablo]

I enjoyed hearing about human ingenuity over the ages.
I particularly liked hearing about the mapping of the seas.
Points on a map, incrementally added over time, arrived at by
exceptional adventure/vision/luck/greed. Another interesting
theme was the transformation of old ideas to new; the
tenacity of tradition. The often mundane and sometimes
brutality of dogma. How a person forges a new path with
insight and research and encourages those two great tasks; yet,
his followers deify the thinker, create a new fortress around
those ideas and now we're stuck with it for 1 thousand years.
And here comes a discoverer to start the process over again.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

An in depth account on the history of discovery; the world, the heavens and the microcosmic scale. Thematically there is little drawing the disparate threads of inquiry together other than a loosely expounded theme of mankind's quest for discovery. I felt the book tried to cover too much too quickly and by consequence was unable to explore any topic in sufficient depth. The history of 'discovery' of the new world is also somewhat whitewashed, incomplete and idealistic; little is said of the desolation and destruction the explorers left in their wake. Nonetheless, an ambitious undertaking and attempted synthesis brought down by its lack of a cohesive narrative.

[Kevin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nearly every page has names that are mentioned once , sometimes with very little context. Really hard to sustain any kind of momentum with a topic given that writing style. I love history, but found it dreadfully hard to follow his writing style. Very Euro centric. For example, Columbus is only described in terms of his navigational success, and not for his atrocities against native peoples.

[Dave Harmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a really good history book focusing on discoveries. This covered a lot of territory that you don't typically see in a social or political history book so i would highly recommend it.

some examples
how books started being made in codex form instead of a long scroll and how that allowed things like page numbers which allowed for tables of contents and indexes and people could suddenly check look up and check a fact or quote instead of just going on their memory and other profound changes.

the history of our understanding and measurement of time

How the transition of science from latin to vernacular made science accessible to everyone but ended the universality of scientific discovery.

the history of history and schleimann and the discovery (or realization) of prehistory and ideas like stone bronze and iron ages.

how Las Casas realized that the Spanish werent treating the native americans properly and how when he pointed out to the king that it wasnt christian to be plundering and enslaving them the king actually listened and changed their ways. (i think we never learned about this because our school books in the US all have a strong protestant, anti-catholic, slant)

[Sean Mcmillin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll write a more detailed review latter but this was amaze balls!

[Erol Kaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great, elaborated, educating, and time-consuming book. I wish I had read it during my university years.

[H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

3 quyển đầu tác giả viết hay, rất ok goodjob, nhưng đến quyển cuối về đề tài xã hội thấy đuối hẳn, có cảm giác bị dí deadline nên ko vô sâu vào chi tiết được 😢 tiếc ghê

[Curtis R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dude no joke I picked this bad boy up in a thrift store for like two bucks. I was drawn by the title and size alone. Thing is a beast. I picked it up and perused, its barely even used, I really had nothing to lose so I snagged it just like that. Its 745 heavy pages and looks and sounds cool. Its heavy and thick and full of facts, and I was going to be living abroad for at least a year. If you could only bring a few books, what would you choose? For fullness alone, but other reasons as well, this one was an obvious candidate.

This thing is straight history with sporadic dives into particular lives of individuals who had notable influence on that part of the narrative he takes us through. He goes through in a chronological sense, tracing those aspects of humanity in general which were discovered, pursued and applied throughout time. In a sense, he suggests that to exist as a human is to explore; that the destiny of mankind is found in discovery.

He begins with the very topic of time and space itself, and man's conception and organization of it, which led to the development of other tools and ideas. He broadly groups everything in four categories: time, the earth and the seas, nature, and society. Within each topic, there are at least ten chapters dissecting and discussing the evolution of understanding and application. But its all cool, like dudes cutting up sheep to learn about anatomy, or why the northern Europeans explored where they did and why they stopped where they did. At least three stories made me gasp out loud. One of them is nuts. One of my favorite themes to think about in life is how the location of people affects them. This book did it in both a geographic and historical way. Although it is dense and descriptive, it is seldom dry, slow or boring. Of course, some subject matter will be less interesting to some (like I didn't care about some stuff for sure). This dude was senior professor at the University of Chicago, and then director and historian for the Smithsonian Museum, and then was the Librarian of Congress for almost a decade. This dude knows. This dude is in it. He loves it. He tells you all about it.

For me, two main themes persisted throughout the book, and of course I could talk about a few other key ideas. The first which immediately comes to mind is that anyone can discover. Any seeker may succeed. Examples constantly abound of people from poor and humble means, informal education, or inconvenient circumstances who would leave a massive legacy or come upon an incredible invention or do something uniquely dynamic etc etc etc. TL;DR - fortune favors the bold, go ahead and get after it.

Secondly, interestingly, is that precise success is not required to push human limits forward - our conceptions of science, the geography of the world, and practical experiments were often not accurate, yet continued the momentum of the human drive for exploration and understanding. You can probably think of an example of this one yourself ahem Christopher Columbus, but it is remarkable how and why certain things happen as they do, and success is not necessarily an ingredient for anything. Sidenote: the conclusion of Captain Cook's life was so frustrating in contrast with the accomplishments of his life.

Of course, the downside is, its so doggone long that although I just finished it, I might as well start reading it again! But wait! Dang! Its part of a trilogy! And hold up! Its not even the longest book! Well, I guess a lot of things did happen in history...