The Discoverers

After months away due to work issues that left me little time for recreational reading, I'm back and reading Daniel J. Boorstin's "The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know his World and Himself". Barring the dated title (apparently women have engaged in their own separate searches...wait...actually, we kind of have...) this book is still remarkable.

I haven't read Boorstin's other works, but he was a Rhodes Scholar, winner of a Pulitzer, a Librarian of Congress (1975-1983), and he spent time as a visiting professor of American History at the Universities of Rome, Kyoto, Geneva, and Puerto Rico among many other accomplishments.

While I can't say I agree with many of his ideas (the man was very politically conservative, outed members of the Communist party to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1953, and opposed early versions of Affirmative Action and African-American Studies as racist movements) he is a clear and engaging communicator when it comes to the written word. He's been politically and intellectually controversial, and looking over a New York Times article written just after his death in 2004, I admire his preference of experience over ideas and his outspokenness regarding the watering-down and staged pageantry of political events in American culture.

The quadrilogy "The Discoverers" explores innovations in mathematics, astronomy, cartography, mechanics, physics, and other disciplines of scientific thought through how they have influenced and been influenced by religion and popular culture. I have just started Book 2 "The Earth and the Seas" which charts the progress of geography and cartography from early Greek and Chinese investigators. Boorstin follows conceptions of the Earth in Europe and western Asia from Eratosthenes (circa 276-195 b.c.e.), who calculated the circumference of the spherical earth to within an error margin of 15%, through the Interruption (of the Enlightenment) when it was considered heresy to believe in the existence of a Southern Hemisphere but not to believe that other pre-Christian monsters and demigods existed in the outer, unexplored regions of the world. Boorstin notes how interesting it is that precise mathematical calculations were somehow more threatening to some early Christian church leaders than were the old gods of "pagan" lands. A favorite quote from this section, "More appealing than knowledge itself is the feeling of knowing".

While the Interruption went on in Europe, and faithful cartographers drew ever more fantastically inaccurate maps to pinpoint Eden and the lands of Prester John (I never even knew such a story existed before reading this book! The detail with which this fanciful land was described by mapmakers who had never seen it is pretty amazing.), the Chinese were perfecting their own system of cartography that came from very pragmatic needs to dedicate land parcels in a huge, diverse, and fairly recently unified country. That's where I am now. I may reflect on other sections/books in the future.

The only thing that surprises me a little is how little mention advances in mathematics and astronomy from Arabic cultures are getting so far. They seem uniquely relevant to this and previous sections, but perhaps there will be more to report later on. The important thing with a book like this to me is the questions it raises, so I can say I'm thoroughly enjoying this one!