Rating: 
Summary: Hard to define.
Review: Van Doren says that prediting the future is risky business and he is correct. Technologies, innovations and wars are tough too prophesize. The safer bet is to say that, in the future, there will likely be willing, feeling, instinct, sense perception, and inductive and deductive logic.
These are human categories. He is correct in
saying that with the scientific method there
must always be inductive and deductive reasoning. Yet the book is marred by the fact
that it does not even mention David Hume
and the probabalism of induction. With inductive logic, there is likely to be a gap between premise and conclusion which is filled
by irrational, psychological and spiritual factors.
Thus, it seems difficult to be "true to nature"
as Bacon said. This book does not even mention phenomenology and empirical positivism, which might be regarded as the most current, evolved, and cummulative philosophies.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible!! - Gaping holes in history and understanding
Review: I stumbled upon this book and read a few lines, convinced it looked like an informative book. I was unpleasantly surprised during the next week as I tried to digest it. I have a few comments: His story of Columbus's "discovery" of America fails to even briefly mention how he betrayed, slaughtered and enslaved the native americans. Unbelievable. My other brief comment: as a scientist, I was first amused, then offended, by his discussion of the scientific method. This guy has absolutely no concept of how scientists think (he claims it's all math, no ideas/concepts); his sweeping generalizations and stereotypes completely ignore current research in the neurosciences regarding learning and memory and the mind/body problem, not to mention the rest of the entire field of biomedical sciences. Overall, I found this book to be irritatingly simplified. I strongly discourage wasting your time reading it - I took my copy back to the bookstore!!
Rating: 
Summary: Broad and bold in scope but subjective and carless at times
Review: Perhaps error and opinion are part and parcel of any book that would make so grand an assault upon the passage of time. Mr. Van Doren attempts to catalog all of history and, inevitably, fails on some counts. With a work like this I find it valuable to seek out and examine the author's discussion of the history I do know - scientific history in my case - and see how well they fare with that. My result - Van Doren parrots the typical legends of Einstein and Heisenburg but seems to understand little of who they were or what they accomplished. Careless mistakes abound as well - e.g. Galilio's date of death is given four years early (1642 vs 1646). But despite its flaws A History of Knowledge is eminently readable and, for those in pursuit of a larger context for what history they already know, quite useful. Perhaps the gravest "danger" of the work is it's confidence - when one is describing the sum events of all time there's precious little room for considering conflicting views and discussing the data that has lead to each - this is a history composed of declarative statements. However, if one can keep an ironic grin firmly in place in the face of Van Doren's confidence, his book as both knowledge and enjoyment to offer.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful outline, should be used as a text
Review: This book should be used as a text book. It is clear, easy to read and full of information. Extremely entertaining and flows from chapter to chapter. Opening up questions and answering others, this book is one of the best general history books I have ever read.
Mr Van Doren has done an outstanding job of condensing and presenting a general history of knowledge with much knowledge and ability.
I noted that while I was reading this book in the summer of 1996 at sidewalk cafes, that on more than one occasion, people walking by would stop and tell me how much they enjoyed the book.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant summary of ideas and their evolution
Review: I ordinarily discount the blurbs that come on the covers of books
(and run away fast from any book or video that describes itself as a
"romp"). In the case of "A History of Knowledge", the blurb says,
"Fascinating . . . No less than the summation of the entire
experience of the human race from the birds-eye view if a tremendous,
encyclopedic intelligence." This is entirely accurate. I recommend
this book highly, especially if you think history dry and dusty
drivel.
Charles Van Doren brings to the book a very objective mind, though he
focuses principally on Western ideas. He an optimist and believes
Democracy and the free expression of ideas the highest achievements
of governance and social order. He will 'call' people he profiles in
the book on their ideas or their hypocrisy. He uses a lot of commas.
Van Doren tackles the history of knowledge through several themes. He briefly profiles contributors to the advancement of thought and
ideas such as Confucius, Mozart, Kafka and Einstein (there are well
over 150 of these profiles). He renders dramatic historical pictures
with clear and rich lines. And he shows the connections between
ideas that allowed for or caused changes in mankind's knowledge. I
particularly like his ability to illuminate historical trends clearly
and without a lot of over-detail. Take the following section about
the significance of money (I have pulled out salient points from a
much richer discussion):
"Until the end of the eighteenth century, that is, only yesterday,
most people had not yet discovered how important money can be. As a
result, their lives were very different from ours, even if
psychologically they were more like us than they were different . . .
No peoples have been discovered who did not want money, however they
conceived or counted it. That being so, it is astonishing to realize
that, until quite recently, most human beings, otherwise much like
ourselves, lacked the conception that is so obvious to us of how to
earn money. The phrase, 'to earn a living,' would have been
incomprehensible to them. Almost every man, woman, and child of
today knows what that means, although many find it hard to do. . . .
In the twentieth century almost everyone, in almost every country,
works for money, and uses the money he earns to buy the things he
needs, and wants, to make a good life. . . . The change from 1800 to
today is extraordinary. In 1800, in most places in the world, money
was almost invisible. Today, it is omnipresent. Work existed then
as now, but the notion that work is life, and life is work, has
practically disappeared. We work in order to earn a living, and we
may even dream of a day when we will no longer need to work, so that
we will have the time to 'really live.' Work and life, instead of
being inseparable parts of our existence, have become conflicting,
almost contradictory notions."
The book is not a dense philosophical tome, but nicely balances
insightful commentary with informative details. Just the Chapter
headings are interesting, for example: What the Romans Knew; What
Was Reborn in the Renaissance; and The Next Hundred Years (this last
chapter is absolutely the best in the book). I will not try to
summarize the book, as I believe the contents to be incompressible,
but Van Doren has some wonderful quotes:
· "When I was a child in the 1930s, I remember studying maps of
Africa that contained blank spaces labeled Terra Incognita. I
thought this was the name of the most interesting country."
· "The greatest artists can help us to see what is happening to our
lives and what may occur in the future. This is one of the most
important services that great art performs."
· "It began to be apparent that no attempt to know accurately and
completely how the interior of the atom worked could succeed. In a
sense, it was like trying to investigate the works of a fine Swiss
watch with the end of your thumb."
· "Fires are perceived by many as having a cleansing effect. So are wars."
· "What normal human being is unaware that sexual thoughts lie just
under the surface of consciousness, always ready to pop out at the
oddest and perhaps most inappropriate moments?"
· "Benjamin Franklin sent up a kite during a thunderstorm around 1750
and established that lightning is a form of electricity. He was
lucky to survive this experiment, which should not be repeated by
anyone not anxious to be electrocuted."
· "The problem posed by steam power--the same problem, only more
pressing, inheres in a nuclear plant--is how to control the kind of
forces that man has recently learned to unleash. It is like opening
the door and letting a lion out of its cage. This is very exciting. And you begin to think, as the lion stretches its great muscles and
roars, if I could only harness that great energy! But then you begin
to wonder, what am I going to do with this lion? One thing is
certain: you cannot put it back in its cage, for it has now grown
bigger than the door. In the end you may be reduced to prayer."
· "Nevertheless, it is a comforting thought to a revolutionist to
believe that he is riding on a historical roller coaster, whose
progress through time is controlled by great forces."
· "If you are going to cut off the head of your enemy's wife, you had
better be prepared to defend yourself."
· "Scientists are generally reluctant to deal with the behavior of
large groups of men and women. Thus economists, for example,
struggle to be considered scientists, but usually in vain. The
external world of scientists contains some things, like quanta,
quarks and quasars, that are fully as mysterious as angels and
normally as invisible. But this does not trouble them, as they
believe they can deal effectively with the elementary particles that
they cannot see and according to the uncertainty principle never can
see, but not with angels, which will probably never appear to
scientists because scientists do not believe in them."
· "The discipline that a man must exert once he has cast himself
adrift from the support of an international church may be akin to the
self-reliance needed for success in a capitalist economy. It may
also be the character trait that makes good citizens in a democratic
polity."
· "Nothing is more conductive to progress than the widespread belief
that it can occur."
· "The history of the European Renaissance illustrates the adage that
nothing fails like success."
· "Theology had built a wall to protect itself from human reason, and
reason was no longer on its side. As with all walls, this one had
the opposite effect from what was intended."
· "The people were obsessed by health, diet and exercise. They spent
more time in health clubs than in churches, temples, libraries and
law courts. They were devoted to consumption. A man could make a
reputation by spending more than his neighbor, even if he had to
borrow the money to do it. And if he never paid back his creditors,
he was honored for having made a noble attempt to cut a fine figure
in the world." Note: he is talking about the late Roman world.
· "There have been two knowledge explosions in human history, not
just one. The second began in Europe four or five centuries ago and
is still going on. The first began in Greece during the sixth
century BC. The Greek explosion also had a long life. Like ours, it
spread quickly and finally affected the entire known world. Like
ours, it commenced with the discovery of a new communications device
and a new method for acquiring knowledge, continued with the help of
striking advances in mathematics, and culminated in revolutionary
theories about matter and force."
· "Averroes was a devout Muslim. Seeing the danger, he never ceased
to insist that, whatever Aristotle might seem to suggest, that there
was in fact only one truth, contained in the Koran. But this was
rather like warning children not to put beans up there noses. The
temptation to do such a surprising thing soon becomes irresistible.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I was assigned it in school
Review: The single best history book I have ever read. It is written and organized in a way that it does not concentrate
on facts, dates, and a needless list of famous people. It
is the best primer of world history to my knowledge. I have enjoyed reading it tremendously. I don't have very
much time to read, and I was able to take an amazing appreciation for the interrelatedness of thousands of years
of history from this book. I am planning on buying it for
anyone whose education and maturation I am concerned for.
If there was one book to read during your life, this is the one. Chris Sciamanna MD MPH
Rating:
Summary: A somewhat mis-titled book
Review: An ambitious book by Van Doren, "A History of Knowledge" presents a sweeping portrayal of knowledge and its developments from the time of the ancients to today and beyond. This portrayal is a relatively easy read, and Van Doren's style is alternatingly conversational and didactic. While it's a good book, I wouldn't recommend it unreservedly. Why? I believe that it has two key flaws.First is its scope. Any book titled "A History of Knowledge" is bound to miss a few things while keeping the size of the book down to something that doesn't require a pickup truck to haul around, and this is no exception. However, the things that Van Doren has chosen to eliminate include all of the progress of knowledge in the Far East or the early Americas (the book would be more accurately titled: "A History of Western Knowledge"). If you're looking to see how knowledge has waxed and waned across the world through recorded history, your best bet is a more focused title (see any of Boorstin's recent three book series for a focus on technology, arts, or philosophy; or Beckman's "History of Pi" for a more mathematical insight). The second, and arguably more serious, flaw is the increasing focus on opinion and interpretation rather than historical presentation. We've become accustomed to separating our history into two parts, one that presents it as it happened (or we believe it happened at any rate), and one that interprets and analyzes it for reflection an understanding. Van Doren hasn't done this. And while I appreciate an author's perspective, I tire of reading of his unalloyed joy in his Judeo-Christian ethic, in the victory of Capitalism over Communism, and in the superiority of democracy over ALL other forms of government. And anyone who's read any science fiction at all will cringe at the prognostications regarding the next 100 years. It's a good, but flawed, book.
Rating:
Summary: Clarity, Brevity, and Simplicity
Review: The great virtues of Charles Van Doran's "History of Knowledge" are clarity, brevity, and simplicity. Van Doran distills a massive amount of historical scholarship rendering only the most influential ideas and developments drawn from humankind's vast store of written knowledge. This distillation, expressed in shockingly matter-of-fact prose, leads to a compact and readable survey of knowledge.
His perspective through most of the book is conventional, which is a good thing. Some of the topics addressed are actually controversial in academia but, for the sake of brevity and simplicity, Van Doran chooses only the commonly accepted interpretations and theories without wasting effort on alternatives.
The book is divided into broad periods of development, chronologically ordered, and then subdivided into short topics loosely tied together by the theme of the period. Such structure allows for both sustained reading and passive perusal.
Van Doran concludes with his best attempt at predicting the future. He clearly qualifies his effort--"Forecasting the future of knowledge of the next hundred years is not just difficult, it is impossibility squared... Still, I am going to try." His ideas, though convincingly put, are indeed painted in bias, but it is the bias of a good and educated mind and so deserve the reader's attention and thought.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but biased and scary
Review: My dad lent me this book after he finished reading it. The best part of it is the index so you can skip the bull and get to the stuff you want to read. Parts of this book intrigued me only because i am fan of history, but the writer kind of scares me. His socialist view of a world government especially gave me goosebumps ("Why Not World Government?"). He pulls off making this part of the book convincing, but if you're aware of all the problems with the military-police state and globalist agendas (Global 2000 report by Cyrus Vance, the birth of the HIV virus{yes, it's a man-made virus, search on clusty.com}) you probably won't agree with him. The way he ends the section is quite disgusting and very suspicious, like he wants you to take his side ("Right?"). Anyone who knows about dictatorship probably knows that ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE CONTROLLING THE WORLD IS NOT GOOD AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT.....did this guy ever read "1984"?
Rating:
Summary: Only Religious Fools Could Hate This Book!
Review: This book is both concise AND well written. It gives a thorough compilation of all the major achievements of the human race - in the areas of science, art, technology, medicine, politics, etc.... The only poor reviews given to this book are from those who feel threatened by its anti-religious overtones. But why shouldn't it have such subtext? Has not religion and religious beliefs remained a hindrance towards the acquisition of ALL great knowledge?? Just look at how the Catholic Church has demonized great men like Copernicus and Galileo. Anyone who believes that religion is antiquated and that factual knowledge as well as logic and truth should be held in higher regard than humanity's need for an "all knowing father-figure," should read and enjoy this book. And for those who are still caught in the web of religion, please read Freud's "Future of an Illusion," and have the courage to drop the safety net under your feet.
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