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The Ten Commandments: And How they Shaped the World
The author of the bestselling E=mc² reveals how 10 ancient rules have influenced the world's civilizations for millennia.
An illuminating cultural history tracing how a set of 3,000-year-old rules shaped the world. David Bodanis reveals how our attitudes towards sex, authority, obligations toward the widowed and elderly, conscription, taxes, killing, and much else have depended on those seemingly simple directives. In mediaeval times, the ninth commandment about false witness led to the notion of "innocent until proven guilty." The fifth commandment was used by John Locke to refute kingly authority, leading to conclusions about personal freedom which Thomas Jefferson immortalized in the Declaration of Independence. The commandments inspired literary masterpieces, such as King Lear, and social upheavals such as the union movement. Their ideas were central in the spread of Islam, in the scientific ambitions of Isaac Newton, and the activism of Martin Luther King Jr. David Bodanis brilliantly uses archaeology, linguistics, social history and above all vivid human stories to show how the Commandments have been and remain an enduring tenet of Western civilization.
From the Hardcover edition.
An illuminating cultural history tracing how a set of 3,000-year-old rules shaped the world. David Bodanis reveals how our attitudes towards sex, authority, obligations toward the widowed and elderly, conscription, taxes, killing, and much else have depended on those seemingly simple directives. In mediaeval times, the ninth commandment about false witness led to the notion of "innocent until proven guilty." The fifth commandment was used by John Locke to refute kingly authority, leading to conclusions about personal freedom which Thomas Jefferson immortalized in the Declaration of Independence. The commandments inspired literary masterpieces, such as King Lear, and social upheavals such as the union movement. Their ideas were central in the spread of Islam, in the scientific ambitions of Isaac Newton, and the activism of Martin Luther King Jr. David Bodanis brilliantly uses archaeology, linguistics, social history and above all vivid human stories to show how the Commandments have been and remain an enduring tenet of Western civilization.
From the Hardcover edition.
- GenresHistory
Paperback
First published March 27, 2012
79 people want to read
About the author
David Bodanis
18 books153 followersDavid Bodanis' latest book THE ART OF FAIRNESS: THE POWER OF DECENCY IN A WORLD TURNED MEAN was published November 2020 and asks the question that has long fascinated David: Can you succeed without being a terrible person? The answer is 'Yes, but you need skill', and the book shows how. I demonstrate those insights through a series of biographies…
David Bodanis is the bestselling author of THE SECRET HOUSE and E=MC2, which was turned into a PBS documentary and a Southbank Award-winning ballet at Sadler's Wells. David also wrote ELECTRIC UNIVERSE, which won the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize, and PASSIONATE MINDS, a BBC Book of the Week. Then a return to Einstein and the struggles he went through with EINSTEIN'S GREATEST MISTAKE which was named ‘Science Book of the Year’ by the Sunday Times, and also widely translated.
David has worked for the Royal Dutch Shell Scenario Prediction unit and the World Economic Forum. He has been a popular speaker at TED conferences and at Davos. His work has been published in the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the New York Times, and has appeared on Newsnight, Start the Week, and other programs. When not slumped in front of a laptop, he has been known to attempt kickboxing, with highly variable results.
David Bodanis is the bestselling author of THE SECRET HOUSE and E=MC2, which was turned into a PBS documentary and a Southbank Award-winning ballet at Sadler's Wells. David also wrote ELECTRIC UNIVERSE, which won the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize, and PASSIONATE MINDS, a BBC Book of the Week. Then a return to Einstein and the struggles he went through with EINSTEIN'S GREATEST MISTAKE which was named ‘Science Book of the Year’ by the Sunday Times, and also widely translated.
David has worked for the Royal Dutch Shell Scenario Prediction unit and the World Economic Forum. He has been a popular speaker at TED conferences and at Davos. His work has been published in the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the New York Times, and has appeared on Newsnight, Start the Week, and other programs. When not slumped in front of a laptop, he has been known to attempt kickboxing, with highly variable results.
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