Product Description

A collection of the pivotal ideas from the great minds of Western civilization. From Plato to Hegel, from Augustine to Nietzsche, from Copernicus to Freud, their concepts are described simply but without simplifying them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #540000 in Books
• Published on: 1996-07-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

From Publishers Weekly
As Tarnas charts the development of Western thought from the ancient Greeks' "archaic mythological consciousness" to Stanislav Grof's depth psychology, which "ratifies Jung's archetypal perspective on a new level," interactions among religion, science and philosophy continuously emerge. Former director of education at Esalen Institute, the author identifies such signposts in this evolutionary process as the Greek Sophists' systematic doubting of belief, the Platonic revival of the Renaissance and modern philosophy's "transfer of allegiance from religion to science." Exposing the "pervasive masculinity" of the West's spiritual, cultural and scientific traditions, Tarnas maintains that a "reintegration of the repressed feminine" is now possible. An intellectual adventure, this challenging synthesis throws a sharp light on ideas central to the modern outlook.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"No other such overview provides, in equal compass, as clear and cogent a survey. Its scholarship is impeccable....For its length it is the best intellectual history of the West I have ever seen." --Huston Smith, Graduate Theological Union at Berkeley
"The most lucid and concise presentation I have read of the grand lines of what every student should know about the history of Western thought."--Joseph Campbell

Ingram
An inquiry into the rich heritage of humankind's cultural revolution discuss the pivotal ideas that have shaped Western civilization, including those of Plato, Hegel, Augustine, Nietzsche, Copernicus, and Freud. Reprint.