Berthoud Community Library District

"In this page-turning, myth-busting history, acclaimed author Rodney Stark shows exactly why Western civilization triumphed over other cultures?and why we all should be thankful it did."--Publisher's website.

In the tradition of his bestselling books "The Story of Civilization" and "The Lessons of History, " Pulitzer-prize winning historian Will Durant traces the lives and ideas of those who have helped to define civilization, in a book published 20 years after his death.

"Genius. The word connotes an almost unworldly power: the power to create, to grasp universal secrets, even to destroy. As renowned intellectual historian Darrin McMahon explains in Divine Fury, the concept of genius can be traced back to antiquity, when men of great insight were thought to be advised by demons. The modern idea of genius emerged in tension with a growing belief in human equality; contesting the notion that all are created equal, geniuses...

A sprawling collection of essays about the subcultures of the 1960s by Tom Wolfe, the revolutionary journalist and novelist. When Tom Wolfe smashed his way into the literary scene in 1965 with The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, he transformed reporting in American popular culture. For his second book, Wolfe traveled from La Jolla to London in search of new lifestyles. The Pump House Gang is the result: a collection of essays that chronicles...

"In this incisive series of intellectual portraits, Adam Shatz, one of the Anglophone world's foremost essayists, charts the role of the committed intellectual. Through the work of Jean-Paul Sartre, he shows how writers bind themselves to the project embodied in their work In a moving portrait of Edward Said, Shatz uncovers the profound role the cause of Palestinian liberation had on his life and writing. And via thinkers as diverse as Fouad Ajami,...

"A myth-shattering view of the medieval Islamic world's myriad scientific innovations, which preceded-and enabled- the European Renaissance. The Arabic legacy of science and philosophy has long been hidden from the West. British- Iraqi physicist Jim Al-Khalili unveils that legacy to fascinating effect by returning to its roots in the hubs of Arab innovation that would advance science and jump- start the European Renaissance. Inspired by the Koranic...

A collection of essays discusses such topics as history, philosophy, literature, education, and music, and re-examines such figures as Shaw, Berlioz, Swift, Dorothy Sayers, and Diderot.

Western philosophy is a vast intellectual tradition, the product of thousands of years of revolutionary thought built up by a rich collection of brilliant minds. When most of us study philosophy, we're focusing only on the Western intellectual tradition brought about by people such as Aristotle, Descartes, and Nietzsche. But to understand the Western intellectual tradition is to only get half of the story. Just as important, and just as valid a contribution...