Reinventing knowledge : from Alexandria to the Internet
McNeely, Ian F.
Reinventing knowledge : from Alexandria to the Internet / Ian F. McNeely ; with Lisa Wolverton. - 1st ed. - New York : W. W. Norton , c2008. - xxii, 318 p. ; 22 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-302) and index.
The library -- The monastery -- The university -- The republic of letters -- The disciplines -- The laboratory.
A dazzling intellectual history of the West served up with verve and insight by two brilliant young historians. Here is an intellectual entertainment, a sweeping history of the key institutions that have organized knowledge in the West from the classical period onward. With elegance and wit, this exhilarating history alights at the pivotal points of cultural transformation. The motivating question throughout: How does history help us understand the vast changes we are now experiencing in the landscape of knowledge? Beginning in Alexandria and its great center of Hellenistic learning and imperial power, we then see the monastery in the wilderness of a collapsed civilization, the rambunctious universities of the late medieval cities, and the thick social networks of the Enlightenment republic of letters. The development of science and the laboratory as a dominant knowledge institution brings us to the present, seeking patterns in the new digital networks of knowledge. Full of memorable characters, this fresh history succeeds in restoring the strangeness and the significance of the past.
9780393065060
2008019100
014673984 Uk
Intellectual life----History
Learning and scholarship----History
Civilization, Western
Civilization, Modern----History
CB358 / .M37 2008
909 MCN
Reinventing knowledge : from Alexandria to the Internet / Ian F. McNeely ; with Lisa Wolverton. - 1st ed. - New York : W. W. Norton , c2008. - xxii, 318 p. ; 22 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-302) and index.
The library -- The monastery -- The university -- The republic of letters -- The disciplines -- The laboratory.
A dazzling intellectual history of the West served up with verve and insight by two brilliant young historians. Here is an intellectual entertainment, a sweeping history of the key institutions that have organized knowledge in the West from the classical period onward. With elegance and wit, this exhilarating history alights at the pivotal points of cultural transformation. The motivating question throughout: How does history help us understand the vast changes we are now experiencing in the landscape of knowledge? Beginning in Alexandria and its great center of Hellenistic learning and imperial power, we then see the monastery in the wilderness of a collapsed civilization, the rambunctious universities of the late medieval cities, and the thick social networks of the Enlightenment republic of letters. The development of science and the laboratory as a dominant knowledge institution brings us to the present, seeking patterns in the new digital networks of knowledge. Full of memorable characters, this fresh history succeeds in restoring the strangeness and the significance of the past.
9780393065060
2008019100
014673984 Uk
Intellectual life----History
Learning and scholarship----History
Civilization, Western
Civilization, Modern----History
CB358 / .M37 2008
909 MCN
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