Jacob Bronowski and "The Ascent of Man"

A must read for a great perspective of the development of mankind. The book is widely available as well as the PBS series.

Jacob Bronowski [Wikipedia]

The Ascent of Man [Wikipedia]

The Ascent of Jacob Bronowski

The Ascent of Man

by

Jacob Bronowski

ISBN-10: 0316109339
ISBN-13: 978-0316109338

Jacob Bronowski was a genuine Renaissance man. This, his most famous book, looks at the history of science from the perspective of Bronowski's deep, humanist philosophy. Bronowski--along with C.P. Snow--saw art and science as two aspects of the same human enterprise: that of understanding the world and expressing that world in human terms. Here Bronowski shows those connections: why Mendeleev's periodic table was part of "the greatest collective work of art" in history--that is, physics; why the Watts Towers of Los Angeles are like the molecules in a copper wire. THE ASCENT OF MAN is a symphony for which SCIENCE AND HUMAN VALUES was merely a prelude. An outstanding, and vitally important book. "I am infinitely saddened," Bronowski writes, "to find myself suddenly surrounded in the West by a terrible loss of nerve." We must not turn our backs on science--we must finally discover it. One of those writers whose every page contains a brilliant idea, Bronowksi is well worth reading.