Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World

by Stephen Trombley

The development of modern thought is traced through a sequence of accessible profiles of the most influential thinkers in every domain of intellectual endeavor since 1789

No major representative of post-Enlightenment thought escapes Trombley's attention in this the German idealists Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel; the utilitarians Bentham and Mill; the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau; Kierkegaard and the existentialists; founders of new fields of inquiry such as Weber, Durkheim, and C.S. Peirce; the analytic philosophers Russell, Moore, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein; political leaders from Mohandas K. Gandhi to Adolf Hitler; and—last but not least—the four shapers-in-chief of our modern the philosopher, historian, and political theorist Karl Marx; the naturalist Charles Darwin, proposer of the theory of evolution; Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis; and the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, begetter of the special and general theories of relativity and founder of post-Newtonian physics. This book offers a crisp analysis of their key ideas, and in some cases a reevaluation of their importance as we proceed into the 21st century.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History

429 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[cwrigh13]

Thoroughly enjoyable reading. A great and quick way of learning about (most of) the best philosophers of modern times without having to read boring Wikipedia articles.

[Ali]

Felsefede kimi okudum, kimleri okumalıyım diye düşünüp duran kişiler için yazılmış sanki. Kitapta felsefe dışı kişiler olsa da aslında hepsini düşünür olarak kabul etmek doğru olur. Bence güzel bir seçki. Ama tabi ki son durağınız olmasın.

[Edkallenn Lima]

Tem alguns pensadores que o autor "força" a entrada. Mas, no geral, a seleção é boa e bem abrangente.

[Ros Tibbs]

a surprising amount of nazis in this…

[Karen]

This book feels flat. Each thinker is only given a few pages and none of it is juicy.

[Walter]

Interesante repaso a l0s 50 pensadores más importantes de las últimas décadas. Me ha hecho descubrir la idea de algunos filósofos de los que solo sabía el nombre y el ramo epistemológico.
Lo mejor de todo ha sido que gracias al libro de Stephen Trombley, he podido descubrir a Feuerbach y ya solo por eso ha valido más que la pena.

[Marina]

Loved it, easy read. A well written book.

[Mert Şahin]

Writer is giving general ideas about the thinkers -modern thinkers ofcourse. Sometimes deep analysis sometimes so 
simply but so effective. It's like a reference for a modern philosophy. I like it.

[Roll Grapefruit]

Short and concise write-ups. Factual error in the introduction though: Darwin never claimed that humans descended from apes, but that both share a common ancestor.

[Peet Badenhorst]

More of a reference to use for lookup