Wow! eBook
The Neurobiology of the Prefrontal Cortex: Anatomy, Evolution, and the Origin of Insight
Author(s): Richard E. Passingham (Author), Steven P. Wise (Author)
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication Date: May 23, 2013
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 456 pages
- ISBN-10: 019966093X
- ISBN-13: 9780199660933
Book Description
This book tells nothing less than the story of how the modern, Western view of the world was born. Cultural and intellectual historian Anthony Pagden explains how, and why, the ideal of a universal, global, and cosmopolitan society became such a central part of the Western imagination in the ferment of the Enlightenment – and how these ideas have done battle with an inward-looking, tradition-oriented view of the world ever since. Cosmopolitanism is an ancient creed; but in its modern form it was a creature of the Enlightenment attempt to create a new “science of man”, based upon a vision of humanity made up of autonomous individuals, free from all the constraints imposed by custom, prejudice, and religion. As Pagden shows, this “new science” was based not simply on “cold, calculating reason”, as its critics claimed, but on the argument that all humans are linked by what in the Enlightenment were called “sympathetic” attachments. The conclusion was that despite the many tribes and nations into which humanity was divided there was only one “human nature”, and that the final destiny of the species could only be the creation of one universal, cosmopolitan society. This new “human science” provided the philosophical grounding of the modern world. It has been the inspiration behind the League of Nations, the United Nations and the European Union. Without it, international law, global justice, and human rights legislation would be unthinkable. As Anthony Pagden argues passionately and persuasively in this book, it is a legacy well worth preserving – and one that might yet come to inherit the earth.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Review from previous edition: “His bold, panoramic and highly readable book is often a page-turner…Worlds at War is hard to put down.” –Amy Chua The Scotsman 5/04/08 “Pagden’s narrative is engagingly written and always interesting.” –Literary review, John Gray 01/03/08 “If you are going to read only one book on the Manichean struggle between East and West, this is the book” –Efraim Karsh, Professor of Mediterranean Studies at the University of London and author of Islamic Imperialism: A History “A masterpiece of stunning scope, readability, and relevance. Pagden is as fine a storyteller as he is a scholar. Worlds at War makes epic battles of the past come alive, not just as turning points of history but as illuminations of what is happening today in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.” –Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution and former US Deputy Secretary of State “Learned, fluent and thorough… One of the pleasures of Pagden’s splendid book is that it is perfectly possible to enjoy and learn from it while disagreeing with its thesis” –Dominic Sandbrook, Daily Telegraph, 22/3/2008 “His breadth of knowledge across two and a half millenia of Western (and to a great extent Eastern) history is impressive… As an intellectual history of Western views of the East, the book is exemplary.” –Ian Garrick Mason. Spectator. 17/05/2008 “‘Worlds at War’ offers some fine vignettes…witty, provocative conversation from a sage.” –Economist 22/03/2008
About the Author
Anthony Pagden has published widely on both Spanish and European history and has worked as a translator and as a publisher in addition to his many academic posts. He taught at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard before a professorship at Johns Hopkins University, and he is currently Distinguished Professor of Political Science and History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His most recent book prior to this one, Worlds at War: The 2,500 Year Struggle Between East and West, was also published by Oxford University Press.
