|
COPYRIGHT 2005 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
IDEAS: A HISTORY FROM FIRE TO FREUD by Peter Watson Weidenfeld, 30 [pounds sterling], pp. 822, ISBN 029760726 [telephone] 26 [pounds sterling] (plus 2.25 [pounds sterling] p&p) 0870 800 4848
Coleridge was supposed to have been the last person ever to have read everything, and that was in 1834. So Peter Watson, a Cambridge archaeology don, is up against it when he tries to squeeze the history of all the clever things that mankind has ever thought into 822 pages.
He makes a pretty good fist of it, though, even if he has to rattle through it at 1066 and All That speed. In the space of one page, he jumps from man getting up from all-fours--about 6,000,000 BC--to man making stone tools...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
