The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century - Peter Watson [epub]

Alternative title: A Terrible Beauty: The People and Ideas That Shaped the Modern Mind : A History



From Publishers Weekly
Just as the 20th century dawned with an unparalleled optimism regarding the moral, social and scientific progress of humanity, it ended with an unshakeable confidence in the promises of technology and the power of free-market economics to deliver a better life for all humankind. British journalist Watson's (War on the Mind; The Caravaggio Conspiracy; etc.) panoramic survey traces various 20th-century ideas and their power to bend and shape society and individuals. At a frenetic pace, he gallops through the modern intellectual landscape, pausing long enough to graze the founts of philosophy (from Wittgenstein to Richard Rorty to Alasdair MacIntyre), literature (Kafka, Woolf, Mann, Rushdie), literary criticism (F.R. Leavis to Jacques Derrida), art (Picasso to Warhol), economics (Milton Friedman to John Kenneth Galbraith), science (Linus Pauling to E.O. Wilson) and film (D.W. Griffiths to Fran?ois Truffaut). He also briefly examines the significance of a wide range of political and cultural movements, such as socialism, communism, fascism, feminism and environmentalism. Watson's rich narrative covers every corner of intellectual life in the 20th century, yet the style is so breezy and anecdotal that it lacks the deep learned elegance of a history of ideas by, for example, Isaiah Berlin or Jacques Barzun. Unfortunately, for all the book's breadth, Watson's workmanlike approach has the feel of a handful of school assignments cobbled together from encyclopedia articles rather than of work drawn from years of thoughtful reflection and an intimate acquaintance with, and love of, ideas.

From Library Journal
In this long and astonishing narrative, British journalist Watson presents an unconventional history of the 20th century, which, he argues, "has been dominated by a coming to terms with science." Although this massive volume is packed with a multitude of events, ideas, and influential people, Watson's infectious writing carries the reader swiftly along. The mosaic he creates can best be illustrated by this typical sentence: "On 25 October 1900, only days after Max Planck sent his crucial equations on a postcard to Heinrich Rubens, Pablo Picasso stepped off the Barcelona train at the Gare d'Orsay in Paris." In 42 chapters, Watson travels from Freud to the Internet, from pragmatism and relativity to Brave New World and Hiroshima, while considering the impact of the arts, existentialism, feminism, sexuality, genetics, medicine, the Great Society, race, AIDS, and more. Key people and ideas are highlighted. It is hard to spot any major omissions, though post-World War II music seems to get overlooked. While this work is reminiscent of Paul Johnson's Modern Times (LJ 5/1/83), Watson's scope goes far beyond politics and history. This book will be read and consulted for many years.

From Booklist
Watson, a contributor to the Observer, The Times of London, and the New York Times, presents an engaging though lengthy record of the intellectual history of the recently completed century. While examining the currents of twentieth-century thought, he vividly portrays the period's great scientists, sociologists, economists, poets, philosophers, and other influential thinkers, and concludes that there were three dominant intellectual forces in the twentieth century: science, free-market economics, and the mass media. He follows the evolution of strictly scientific and humanistic pursuits in such fields of study as sociology, psychology, and gender studies. He examines such questions as why no new generation of public intellectuals has emerged since the 1960s. He touches on pretty much everything, from psychoanalysis to Kosovo, that has developed or happened during the 100 years he covers. Moreover, he seems inexhaustible at interconnecting names and ideas, so that fans of James Burke's TV series--The Day the Universe Changed and the rest--in particular will find Watson's big book enthralling, illuminating, and intellectually titillating.

About the Author
Peter Watson has been a senior editor at the London Sunday Times, a New York correspondent of the London Times, a columnist for the London Observer, and a contributor to the New York Times. He has published three exposés on the world of art and antiquities, and is the author of several books of cultural and intellectual history. From 1997 to 2007 he was a research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He lives in London.