Search results for ""Author Peter Watson""

‘Majestic, ambitious' Literary Review_________________________________________________________________________________________We are endlessly fascinated by the French. We are fascinated by their way of life, their creativity, sophistication and self-assurance, and even their insistence that they are exceptional. But how did France become the country it is today, and what really sets it apart?Journalist and historian Peter Watson sets out to answer these questions in The French Mind, a dazzling history of France that takes us from the seventeenth century to the present day through the nation’s most influential thinkers. He opens the doors to the Renaissance salons that were a breeding ground for poets, philosophers and scientists, and tells the forgotten stories of the extraordinary succession of women who ran these institutions, fostering a culture of stylish intellectualism unmatched anywhere else in the world.It’s a story that takes us into Bohemian cafes and cabarets, into chic Parisian high culture via French philosophies of food, fashion and sex, while growing unrest hastens the bloody birth of a republic. From the 1789 revolution to the country’s occupation by Nazi Germany, Watson argues that a unique series of devastating military defeats helped shape the resilient, proud, innovative character of the French.This is a history of breathtaking ambition, propelled by the characters Watson brings to vivid life: the writers, revolutionaries and painters who loved, inspired and rivalled one another over four hundred years. It documents the shaping of a nation whose global influence, in art, culture and politics, cannot be overstated._____________________________________________________________________‘An encyclopaedic celebration of French intellectuals refusing to give up on universal principles, rooted in the Enlightenment and French Revolution, while remaining slim, bringing up well-behaved children and falling in love at every opportunity’ The Times'An engaging movement through time towards France’s recent reckonings with extremism, exceptionalism and empire’ TLS

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'Breathtakingly entertaining, endlessly instructive, irresistibly enjoyable' THE TIMES'A tour de force ... breathtaking' SPECTATOR'A magnificent achievement' LITERARY REVIEWTERRIBLE BEAUTY presents a unique narrative of the twentieth century. Unlike more conventional histories, where the focus is on political events and personalities, on wars, treaties and elections, this book concentrates on the ideas that made the century so rich, rewarding and provocative. Beginning with four seminal ideas which were introduced in 1900 - the unconscious, the gene, the quantum and Picasso's first paintings in Paris - the book brings together the main areas of thought and juxtaposes the most original and influential ideas of our time in an immensely readable narrative. From the creation of plastic to Norman Mailer, from the discovery of the 'Big Bang' to the Counterculture, from Relativity to Susan Sontag, from Proust to Salman Rushdie, and Henri Bergson to Saul Bellow, the book's range is encyclopaedic. We meet in these pages the other twentieth century, the writers, the artists, the scientists and philosophers who were not cowed by the political and military disasters raging around them, and produced some of the most amazing and rewarding ideas by which we live. Terrible Beauty, endlessly stimulating and provocative, affirms that there was much more to the twentieth century than war and genocide.

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Una nueva y atrevida interpretación, que no sólo transforma las ideas establecidas acerca de los orígenes de la economía europea, sino también las que se refieren a la formación histórica de la Europa moderna. Analizando el gran caudal de datos proporcionados por los textos y por la arqueología, McCormick llena de vida y movimiento unos siglos que creíamos vacíos, siguiendo los pasos de un gran número de viajeros diplomáticos, peregrinos, guerreros o comerciantes- con los que circulan también mercancías e ideas. Surge así una nueva imagen de unos pequeños mundos europeos medievales enlazados con el más amplio de las economías y culturas del Islam. Este libro nos propone una nueva y atrevida interpretación, que no sólo va a transformar nuestras ideas acerca de los orígenes de la economía europea, sino también las que se refieren a la formación histórica de Europa. Analizando, con el auxilio del ordenador, el gran caudal de datos que nos han proporcionado en las últimas décadas las nueva

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Una brillante historia de la ciencia de los u?ltimos 150 an?os que ofrece una nueva visio?n: distintas disciplinas cienti? cas esta?n convergiendo para dar lugar a nuevos hallazgos.Convergenciases una historia de la ciencia moderna con un original y signi cativo viraje. Varias disciplinas cienti? cas, pese a sus distintos ori?genes, han trabajado conjuntamente durante los u?ltimos 150 an?os, convergiendo y fusiona?ndose. Se han descubierto i?ntimas conexiones entre Fi?sica y Qui?mica, Psicologi?a y Biologi?a, Gene?tica y Lingu?i?stica. En este revolucionario ensayo, Peter Watson muestra, con extraordinario estilo narrativo, co?mo las disciplinas cienti? cas con uyen y juegan un papel fundamental en la historia de la ciencia.Watson empieza su relato en 1850, la de?cada en la que algunas ramas de la ciencia comienzan a convergir. La historia se desarrolla enlazando avances cienti? cos, saltando de disciplina en disciplina y relatando el mayor descubrimiento cienti? co de cada de?cada

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Between December 1943 and August 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill ignited the Cold War, a superpower rivalry that would dominate the world over half a century, by building an atomic bomb and excluding their Russian allies. Peter Watson tells the pulse-pounding story of how two atomic physicists tried to counter this in two very different ways. While Niels Bohr sought to convince President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to share their nuclear knowledge with Joseph Stalin, nuclear scientist Klaus Fuchs, a German Communist emigre to Britain, was leaking atomic secrets to the Soviets in a rival attempt to ensure parity between the superpowers. Neither succeeded in preventing the World War II allies from unleashing the atom bomb on the world.Fallout proves that the atomic bomb was not needed, and was made as a result of a series of flawed decisions. The Americans did not tell the UK that the atomic research was compromised by Soviet spies; the British did not tell the Americans that in 1943 they knew for sure that Germany did not have a nuclear bomb program. Neither country admitted to the scientists developing the bomb that it would never be used to counter the (non-existent) German nuclear threat. Had the scientists known, many of them would have refused to complete work on the bomb. This story shows how politicians fatally failed to understand the nature of atomic science and, in so doing, exposed the world needlessly to great danger, a danger that is still very much with us.

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A sweeping tour of French history from the 17th century to the present day from the highly acclaimed author of The German Genius

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The closing months of 2008 saw the world's nations united in financial uncertainty. Amid endless reports of collapsing stock markets, failed banks, fiscal fraud and snowballing unemployment, THE AGE OF NOTHING offers a compelling insight into the demise of capitalism and the beginning of a new era.Peter Watson's scintillating thesis argues that the unprecedented credit crunch of 2008 was the result of a fundamental change in the fabric of society - one that became truly visible only as it reached its culmination.In a commanding narrative, Watson provides a historical perspective on the shift in our attitudes towards capitalism, while exploring the philosophical roots that underpin it. Of central importance in Watson's theory is Nietzsche's warning regarding mankind's responsibility for 'the death of God' - and the consequences thereof. Nietzsche's views on the frailty of human values in a world bereft of religious faith were echoed by writers including Tolstoy, Marx and Kandinsky - and his chilling message went on to resonate with thinkers throughout the 20th century. When Max Weber called the modern world 'disenchanted', and argued that society must choose to create a new value system based on knowledge or else surrender and embrace a religious faith, he was the latest in a long line of intellectuals attempting to address the problem Nietzsche had laid bare.With the arrival of THE AGE OF NOTHING, the line continues. The work fills a crucial gap in our intellectual history and serves as a comprehensive study of society's current predicament - as well as a timely answer to the question of what to do next.

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A highly ambitious and lucid history of ideas from the very earliest times to the present day.'A masterpiece' NEW STATESMAN'An extraordinary new book ... This is the history of "ideas" as it has never presented before' SUNDAY TELEGRAPHIn this hugely ambitious and exciting book Peter Watson tells the history of ideas from prehistory to the present day, leading to a new way of telling the history of the world. The book begins over a million years ago with a discussion of how the earliest ideas might have originated. Looking at animal behaviour that appears to require some thought: tool-making, territoriality, counting, language (or at least sounds), pairbonding. Peter Watson moves on to the apeman and the development of simple ideas such as cooking, the earliest language, the emergence of family life. All the obvious areas are tackled: the Ancient Greeks, Christian theology, the ideas of Jesus, astrological thought, the soul, the self, beliefs about the heavens, the ideas of Islam, the Crusades, humanism, the Renaissance, Gutenberg and the book, the scientific revolution, the age of discovery, Shakespeare, the idea of Revolution, the Romantic imagination, Darwin, imperialism, modernism, Freud right up to the present day and the internet.

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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.

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From the end of the Baroque age and the death of Bach in 1750 to the rise of Hitler in 1933, Germany was transformed from a poor relation among western nations into a dominant intellectual and cultural force more influential than France, Britain, Italy, Holland, and the United States. In the early decades of the 20th century, German artists, writers, philosophers, scientists, and engineers were leading their freshly-unified country to new and undreamed of heights, and by 1933, they had won more Nobel prizes than anyone else and more than the British and Americans combined. But this genius was cut down in its prime with the rise and subsequent fall of Adolf Hitler and his fascist Third Reich-a legacy of evil that has overshadowed the nation's contributions ever since. Yet how did the Germans achieve their pre-eminence beginning in the mid-18th century? In this fascinating cultural history, Peter Watson goes back through time to explore the origins of the German genius, how it flourished and shaped our lives, and, most importantly, to reveal how it continues to shape our world. As he convincingly demonstarates, while we may hold other European cultures in higher esteem, it was German thinking-from Bach to Nietzsche to Freud-that actually shaped modern America and Britain in ways that resonate today.

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How the division of the Americas from the rest of the world affected human history.In 15,000 B.C. early humankind, who had evolved in Africa tens of thousands of years before and spread out to populate the Earth, arrived in Siberia, during the Ice Age. Because so much water was locked up at that time in the great ice sheets, several miles thick, the levels of the world's oceans were much lower than they are today, and early humans were able to walk across the Bering Strait, then a land bridge, without getting their feet wet and enter the Americas. Then, the Ice Age came to an end, the Bering Strait refilled with water and humans in the Americas were cut off from humans elsewhere in the world. This division - with two great populations on Earth, each oblivious of the other - continued until Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America just before 1500 A.D. This is the fascinating subject of THE GREAT DIVIDE, which compares and contrasts the development of humankind in the 'Old World' and the 'New' between 15,000 B.C. and 1500 A.D. This unprecedented comparison of early peoples means that, when these factors are taken together, they offer a uniquely revealing insight into what it means to be human.THE GREAT DIVIDE offers a masterly and totally original synthesis of archaeology, anthropology, geology, meteorology, cosmology and mythology, to give a new shape - and a new understanding - to human history.

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‘Majestic, ambitious’ Literary Review ____________________________________ We are endlessly fascinated by the French. We are fascinated by their way of life, their creativity and sophistication, and even their insistence that they are exceptional. But how did France become the country it is today, and what really sets it apart? Historian Peter Watson sets out to answer these questions in this dazzling history of France, taking us from the seventeenth century to the present day through the nation’s most influential thinkers. He opens the doors to the Renaissance salons that brought together poets, philosophers and scientists, and tells the forgotten stories of the extraordinary women who ran these institutions, fostering a culture of stylish intellectualism unmatched anywhere else in the world. It’s a story that takes us into Bohemian cafés and cabarets, into chic Parisian high culture via French philosophies of food, fashion and sex, and through two explosive revolutions.The French Mind is a history propelled by the writers, revolutionaries and painters who loved, inspired and rivalled one another over four hundred years. It documents the shaping of a nation whose global influence, in art, culture and politics, cannot be overstated. __________________________________________ ‘An encyclopaedic celebration of French intellectuals refusing to give up on universal principles, while remaining slim, bringing up well-behaved children and falling in love at every opportunity’ The Times 'An engaging movement through time towards France's recent reckonings with extremism, exceptionalism and empire' TLS

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It is one of the most enduring mysteries of the twentieth century: how, exactly, Adolf Hitler died and what happened to his remains. With access to the Russians' Hitler Archive, this book reveals not only what happened after the Russians captured Hitler's bunker but also why the Soviets felt the details of his death had to be suppressed.

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This is a brilliant collection of landscape photography that gives the inspiration needed to take great digital photographs. Techniques include how to find the best locations, plus captions include all technical information. It comes from UK author, Peter Watson. Using a fabulous collection of landscape photography, Peter Watson's latest book gives you both the inspiration and knowledge you need to take stunning digital photographs. Starting at the beginning and explaining digital photography from scratch, there is advice on choosing the right equipment and explanations of the techniques you will need for photographing in an outdoor environment. The core of the book deals with light, composition, close-ups and locations by showcasing striking images and then offering comprehensive and entertaining explanations on all aspects of producing them, including screenshots of the Photoshop adjustments made.

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Bestselling author Peter Watson provides the knowledge needed to compose stunning digital photographs. It guides the reader through picking the best viewpoint, using the light to one's advantage and creating depth and impact. It features a collection of inspiring photographs with captions that include all technical information. The landscape is not only endlessly varied it is also constantly changing, and this is what makes it such a fascinating and challenging subject. Using a fabulous collection of landscape photography shot in the UK, the USA and France, Peter Watson's latest book gives photographers of every ability the knowledge needed to compose stunning digital photographs. Starting with an explanation of what makes a good landscape for photography, the book guides you through picking the best viewpoint, using the light to your advantage and creating depth and impact. All pictures featured have captions that include all technical information, including post-processing instructions.

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