The Modern Mind : An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

"Splendidly readable and hugely informative. . . . Episode after episode from the cultural life of the twentieth century springs to vivid life." — Boston Globe From Freud to Babbitt, from Animal Farm to Sartre to the Great Society, from the Theory of Relativity to counterculture to Kosovo, The Modern Mind is encyclopedic, covering the major writers, artists, scientists, and philosophers who produced the ideas by which we live. Peter Watson has produced a fluent and engaging narrative of the intellectual tradition of the twentieth century, and the men and women who created it. "Watson's rich narrative covers every corner of intellectual life in the twentieth century." — Publishers Weekly "Packed with a multitude of events, ideas, and influential people, Watson's infectious writing carries the reader swiftly along. . . . This book will be read and consulted for many years." — Library Journal "Enthralling, illuminating, and intellectually titillating." — Booklist The author of "War on the Mind" presents a major narrative history of the thoughts, ideas, individuals, scientific discoveries, literature, and art of the 20th century. This major narrative history of the people and ideas that shaped the modern world is a brilliantly reasoned examination of the thought and individuals that made twentieth-century culture. From Freud to Babbitt, from Relativity to Susan Sontag, from Proust to Henri Bergson to Saul Bellow, the books range is encyclopedic, covering the major writers, artists, scientists, and philosophers who produced the ideas by which we live. Beginning with four seminal ideas that were introduced in 1900 -- the unconscious, the gene, the quantum, and Picasso's first paintings in Paris-Peter Watson has produced a fluent and engaging narrative of the intellectual tradition of the past century. The book is divided into four parts -- Freud to Wittgenstein; Spengler to Animal Farm; Sartre to the Sea of Tranquility; the counterculture to Kosovo -- and there are forty-two chapters. Watson emphasizes that "the century may be understood as a period during which the scientific method colonized all modes of thought and changed the way thinking is done." He sees the first half of the century as a period of discovery and the last half as a period of analysis, synthesis, and understanding, and he explores the role of the United States in setting the century's agenda in many areas. Unlike more conventional histories, in which the focus is on political events and personalities, The Modern Mind is an illuminating blueprint of twentieth-century thought and culture and the men and women who created it

From Freud to Babbitt, from Animal Farm to Sartre, from the Theory of Relativity and the Great Society to Counterculture and Kosovo, The Modern Mind is an extraordinary, provacative, and brilliantly reasoned examination of the ideas and individuals that have shaped the 20th-century intellectual tradition. Focusing on all the great and many lesser-known individuals, break-throughs, and events of Western culture, Peter Watson explores the role of the United States in setting the century's agenda and emphasizes the effect science has played in intellectual history. Writing with authority and verve, Watson has produced a fluent, engaging, and intelligent look at the recent past—an illuminating blueprint of modern thought and culture more than 10 years in the making. For readers of Jacques Barzun, Paul Johnson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Paul Kennedy, The Modern Mind is the perfect historical companion.

About the Author:
Peter Watson is the author of War on the Mind, The Caravaggio Conspiracy, Nureyev, and several novels. He currently writes for the Observer, Times(London), New York Times, and the Spectator. He lives in London. England.

Daniel Bell

It is astounding, a one-man encyclopedia, a history of every idea in the twentieth century.

"This narrative history of the people and ideas that shaped the modern world is a brilliantly reasoned examination of the thought and individuals that made twentieth-century culture. From Freud to Babbitt, from Relativity to Susan Sontag, from Proust to Henri Bergson to Saul Bellow, the book's range is encyclopedic, covering the major writers, artists, scientists, and philosophers who produced the ideas by which we live. Beginning with four seminal ideas that were introduced in 1990 - the unconscious, the gene, the quantum, and Picasso's first paintings in Paris - Peter Watson has produced a fluent and engaging narrative of the intellectual tradition of the past century."--BOOK JACKET. A compelling survey of the ideas, discoveries, individuals, and cultural expressions that comprise the intellectual history of the twentieth century covers the gamut, from Freud's psychotherapy to the War in Kosovo. Reprint. Interviewed on BBC television in 1997, shortly before his death, Sir Isaiah Berlin, the Oxford philosopher and historian of ideas, was asked what had been the most surprising thing about his long life. Presents a survey of the ideas, discoveries, individuals, and cultural expressions that comprise the intellectual history of the twentieth century