Polymath: a cultural history from Leonardo Da Vinci to Susan Sontag /
The polymath: a cultural history from Leonardo Da Vinci to Susan Sontag
Peter Burke.
- New Haven : Yale University Press, 2021
- xi, 327 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some colour) ; 20 cm
TB4027/13 $18.00
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Machine generated contents note: 1. East and West -- 2. The Age of the `Renaissance Man', 1400 -- 1600 -- 3. The Age of `Monsters of Erudition', 1600 -- 1700 -- 4. The Age of the `Man of Letters', 1700 -- 1850 -- 5. The Age of Territoriality, 1850 -- 2000 -- 6. A Group Portrait -- 7. Habitats -- 8. The Age of Interdisciplinarity.
From Leonardo Da Vinci to John Dee and Comenius, from George Eliot to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. But history can be unkind to scholars with such encyclopaedic interests. All too often these individuals are remembered for just one part of their valuable achievements. In this account, renowned cultural historian Peter Burke argues for a more rounded view. Identifying 500 western polymaths, Burke explores their wide-ranging successes and shows how their rise matched a rapid growth of knowledge in the age of the invention of printing, the discovery of the New World and the Scientific Revolution. It is only more recently that the further acceleration of knowledge has led to increased specialisation and to an environment that is less supportive of wide-ranging scholars and scientists. Spanning the Renaissance to the present day, Burke changes our understanding of this remarkable intellectual species.
9780300260465(pbk.)
GBC033509 bnb
019735174 Uk
Intellectuals--History. Learning and scholarship--History. Knowledge, Theory of--History. Intellectuals. Knowledge, Theory of. Learning and scholarship.