Peter Watson (intellectual historian)
Peter Watson (born 1943) is an intellectual historian and former journalist, now perhaps best known for his work in the history of ideas.
He was educated at the universities of Durham, London, and Rome. Watson was deputy editor of New Society, and was for four years a member of the Insight team of The Sunday Times. He was New York correspondent of The Times and has written for The Observer, Punch, The Spectator and The New York Times. His journalistic work has included detailed investigation of auction houses and the international market in stolen antiquities, which has resulted in books and TV documentaries.
In June 1997 Watson became a research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge. He has published thirteen books, his latest being The German Genius, published by Simon & Schuster in 2010.[1][2]
In an interview on CBC News on May 5, 2007, Watson stated, "Religion has kept civilization back for hundreds of years, and the biggest mistake in the history of civilization, is ethical monotheism, the concept of the one God. Let's get rid of it and be rational."
[edit] Bibliography
Watson, Peter (2010). The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century. Harper Perennial. p. 992. ISBN 0060760230.
Watson, Peter (2007). Nothing Is an Accident. Parker Colorado: Outskirts Press. p. 332. ISBN 1432703781.
Watson, Peter; Cecilia Todeschini (2007). The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-- From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums. Jackson Tennessee: PublicAffairs/Perseus Books. p. 448. ISBN 1586484389.
Watson, Peter (2006). Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud. New York: Harper Perennial. p. 848. ISBN 0060935642.
Watson, Peter (2005). Landscape of Lies (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries). New York: Felony & Mayhem Press. p. 240. ISBN 1933397187.
Watson, Peter (2002). The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century. Harper Perennial. p. 864. ISBN 0060084383.
Watson, Peter (1998). Sotheby's: The Inside Story. New York: Random House. p. 324. ISBN 0679414037.
Watson, Peter (1989). Wisdom and Strength, the Biography of a Renaissance Masterpiece. Doubleday. p. 395. ISBN 009174637X.
Watson, Peter (1984). The Caravaggio Conspiracy. New York: Penguin/Doubleday. p. 321. ISBN 0140076352.
Watson, Peter (1978) (hardcover). War on the Mind: the Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology. New York: Basic Books. p. 534. ISBN 0-465-09065-6. OCLC 77-75237.
[edit] References
- ^ Peter Watson, Modern Mind: An intellectual history of the 20th century (2001) ISBN 0-06-008438-3
- ^ Peter Watson's biography at MacDonald Institute
[edit] External links
A video featuring Peter Watson at Durham University's Institute of Advanced Study, titled The Enchantment of Ideas, can also be found here: http://www.dur.ac.uk/ias/events/enchantment_of_ideas/
Another video featuring Peter Watson giving a lecture in New York on the theft of antiquites can be found here: http://www.savingantiquities.org/podcasts.php
