A History of Knowledge

A History of Knowledge (1991, ISBN 0-345-37316-2) is a book on intellectual history, with emphasis on the western civilization, written by Charles Van Doren, a longtime editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It is a history of human thought, condensing over 5000 years of philosophy, learning, and belief systems into just 400 pages. It surveys the key historical trends and breakthroughs connecting the globalizing human landscape of the 20th century all the way back to the scattered roots of human civilization in India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Greece, and Rome.

For a sense of the tone, the first section is entitled "The Wisdom of the Ancients" and begins, "By the time written history began, some fifty centuries ago, mankind had learned much more than our primitive ancestors knew."

The book's last chapter focuses on the potential developments of the 21st century. It also contains biographies of many notable historical figures.

Chapter Titles

1. Wisdom of the Ancients
2. The Greek Explosion
3. What the Romans Knew
4. Light in the Dark Ages
5. The Middle Ages: The Great Explosion
6. What was Reborn in the Renaissance?
7. Europe Reaches Out
8. The Invention of the Scientific method
9. An Age of Revolutions
10. The Nineteenth Century: Prelude to Modernity
11. The World in 1914
12. The Twentieth Century: The Triumph of Democracy
13. The Twentieth Century: Science and Technology
14. The Twentieth Century: Art and the Media
15. The Next Hundred Years HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE covers not only all the great theories and discoveries of the human race, but also explores the social conditions, political climates, and individual men and women of genius that brought ideas to fruition throughout history.