| Edition |
2007
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| Publication |
London, Jonathan Cape, 2006.
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| Description |
xii, 534pCream Spine
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this book Roger Osborne shows that we can only truly understand our civilization by re-examining and confronting our past, with all its glories and catastrophes. Sweeping in its scope and comprehensive in its coverage, Civilization tells the story of the western world from its origins to the present. Tying together the histories of empires, art, philosophy, science and politics, Civilization includes the crucial events and people in the history of the western world from the siege of Troy to the Gettysburg address, from Charlemagne to the European Union, from Aristotle to Einstein, and from Giotto to John Ford. Civilization is the story we tell each other in order to place ourselves in the world and to justify our actions. In the last few decades this story has, for many western citizens, become increasingly tarnished and divorced from reality. Roger Osborne, however, forges a new story of the past that is both challenging and inspiring. At such a dangerous time in the world's history this book is required reading.
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| Contents |
Illustrations
List of maps
Prologue
Ch. 1. In the beginning : prehistory and illiterate societies
Ch. 2. A torrent of words : change and custom in classical Greece
Ch. 3. The birth of abstraction : Plato, Aristotle and the rational mind
Ch. 4. The universal civilization : Rome and the Barbarians
Ch. 5. Augustine's vision of Christianity : from rebel sect to universal faith
Ch. 6. Religion as civilization : the establishment of Western Christendom
Ch. 7. Another way of living : the medieval town and communal life
Ch. 8. Art as civilization : wealth, power and innovation in the Italian renaissance
Ch. 9. The search for the Christian life : the European Reformation as a new beginning
Ch. 10. Kings, armies and nations : the rise of the military state
Ch. 11. Us and them : colonization and slavery
Ch. 12. The rational individual : theory and practice in making society
Ch. 13. Enlightenment and revolution : politics and reason in France and America
Ch. 14. Industrialization and nationalism : British dominance and the ideology of freedom
Ch. 15. From rural colonies to industrial continent : the making of modern America
Ch. 16. Towards the abyss : technology, ideology, apocalypse
Ch. 17. The end of civilization : depression, extremism and genocide in Europe, America and Asia
Ch. 18. The post-war world : from social cohesion to global marketplace.
Acknowledgements, references and further reading
Index
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| Standard Number |
9780712691383 Pb.
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