The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself

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Summary: A PRECIOUS DISCOVERY
Review: A truly wonderful book. One that should be used as a textbook in History in high school. Easily readable, it takes the reader on a voyage of far reaching proportions. What is it that makes this book so pleasurable and instructive? A fresh approach to the evolution of knowledge and science as experienced historically by the pioneers. The exploration in retrospective of the discovery of the concept of time and the clock, the compass, the telescope, the microscope and the evolutionary description of the knowledge that mankind acquired through these instruments and the bold steps of the pioneers that wondered around the seas, the cosmos, the mind, etc.. Why is it that modern culture, the different cultures and science are the way they are ? You will find a lot of answers about how this came to happen in the book by the former Librarian of Congress and senior historian of the Smithsonian Institution.
After I read this book, the promise made in the Washington Post Book World's review to it, I found fulfilled: "few indeed will be the readers who do not themselves become discoverers....." This book is one of the most outstanding discoveries that I made in my quest for knowledge. You must not overlook it.

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Summary: One of the great big history books.
Review: Being a fan of history I can be very thankful to my friend for recommending this book for me. Here in 650 compact pages is basically the entire history of discovery. From the invention of time to the innovations in agriculture; from voyages of the Europeans to 'new worlds' to the fifteenth century Chinese voyages to Africa; from the discoveries of the mind and anatomy to the discoveries of political and economic thought (Adam Smith, Karl Marx, etc.) It is all in this book.

Boorstin uses an exhaustive collection of research to tell the stories of discovery in a very lucid, almost novel-like, style that proves engaging to the very last page. His tellings of the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci and Captain Cook are some of the best parts. But with this being the seventieth review of this book, I doubt there is much more I can offer in summary that has not already been alluded to; but there is one bit of insight I would like to point out.

This book is apolitical. The one-hundred or so pages dedicated to the voyages of discovery conducted by Europe from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries are told purely from a standpoint of facts and discoveries. For example: the innovations in map making; new sailing techniques; and the overall impact on social thinking in Europe. Readers looking for any input on the effects of discovery on the native populations of America and elsewhere will have to in turn look elsewhere. The same thinking applies to new political thoughts such as the French Revolution and Marxism: just the facts and the reasons. It is a fun to read factual primer. Read it with that in mind and it is one of the best books on history in recent memory.

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Summary: Great writing, but it does have shortcomings
Review: Boorstin's amazingly thorough and eminently readable account of 'Man the Discoverer' was a pleasure to read. Instructive without being pedantic, this approach offers history writing at its best. There are few shortcomings, though, that prevent it from a '10' rating. Lack of illustrations limits the book's effectiveness: many geographic areas Boorstin mentions are not commonly known, so maps would be helpful; and complex concepts (such as the "escapement mechanism" in time pieces) are not successfully explained in words, and desparately need pictures to demonstrate what he is talking about. Boorstin is also extremely limited in his discussions of discovery in the 20th century. Einstein is barely mentioned, powered flight isn't discussed, communication revolutions of discovery such as telephone, radio, or television aren't covered, and no mention is made of computers nor the amazing things we've discovered with their use. This does not prevent Boorstin from giving an inordinate amount of attention to other 20th century figures such as Freud in psychiatry or Keynes in economics. (Are these things really "discoveries" in the same sense as the other things he covers in the book??) Overall, this is a fine book, but it could be better.

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Summary: Popular History in the best sense of the term
Review: Daniel Boorstin's Discoverers is a delight to read. Its sweeping theme is humanity's discovery of the natural and social world we inhabit. There are major sections that deal with the discovery of the calendar and the invention of the clock; the geographical discoveries of the 15th to 18th centuries; the natural world of astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology; and the social world of historiography and economics. An approach of this sort can't help but be anecdotal which might offend the sensibilities of many professional historians. Yet, for educated laymen (and those historians who recognize the importance of well written synthesis and popularization) the anecdotes are valuable illustrations of his theme-- and great fun to read. I learned much from this book: details of the lives and work of such luminaries and Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus and Adam Smith; also of the lives of lesser known discoverers such as Aldus Manutius, Amerigo Vespucci and the Chinese explorer Cheng Ho. His bibliographic essay at the end is an excellent resource for further reading. I look forward to reading The Creators and The Seekers, the next two books in the trilogy.