Watson reveals both why these ideas were born in Greece and nowhere else, and why their legacy is 'the greatest the world has yet known'. He shows how, unlike other early civilisations, the Greeks focused on the human world, and gave us philosophy, tragedy and comedy, the first naturalistic art, political theory, the beginnings of science and atomic theory, and the first democracy. Watson's fascinating narrative explains the origins of language, the first civilisations, and how the primitive sky gods developed into the great faiths of Hinduism, Confucianism and Judaism. To many archaeologists, the most momentous idea is the domestication of plants and animals, which allowed early humans to settle in farming communities, and civilisation to begin. What is the most important human idea of all time? Is it the harnessing of fire, the invention of the wheel, or the concept of God? Peter Watson's dazzling history of human thought proposes an answer to this and many other questions. From the first stoneflint tools and the earliest languages to the great scientific discoveries of the 20th century, Ideas: A History is a fascinating insight into the development of human thought. Yet how much do we know of the ideas that were at the root of these events? In this acclaimed and unprecedented work, historian and archaeologist Peter Watson gives us a new history of the world, by explaining the ideas that have shaped civilisation. We are all familiar with history in terms of wars and revolutions, victories and defeats. 1,152 pages with 34 pages of colour and black & white plates.

Ideas by peter watson