Peter Watson

Peter Watson's virtuoso sweep through modern German thought and culture, from 1750 to the present day, will challenge and confound both the stereotypes the world has of Germany and those that Germany has of itself. From the end of the Baroque era and the death of Bach 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 creative and influential than France, Britain, Italy, Holland, and the United States. In the early decades of the twentieth century, German artists, writers, scholars, philosophers, scientists, and engineers were leading their freshly unified country to new and unimagined heights. By 1933, Germans had won more Nobel Prizes than any other nationals, and more than the British and Americans combined. Yet this remarkable genius was cut down in its prime by Adolf Hitler and his disastrous Third Reich—a brutal legacy that has overshadowed the nation's achievements ever since. How did the Germans transform their country so as to achieve such pre-eminence? In this absorbing cultural and intellectual history, Peter Watson goes back through time to explore the origins of the German genius, and he explains how and why it flourished, how it shaped our lives, and, most important, how it continues to influence our world. As he convincingly demonstrates, it was German thinking—from Beethoven and Kant to Diesel and Nietzsche, from Goethe and Wagner to Mendel and Planck, from Hegel and Marx to Freud and Schoenberg—that was paramount in the creation of the modern West. Moreover, despite World War II, figures such as Joseph Beuys, JÜrgen Habermas, and Joseph Ratzinger ensure that the German genius still resonates intellectually today.

Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century

The German Genius

Peter Watson's hugely ambitious and stimulating history of ideas from deep antiquity to the present day—from the invention of writing, mathematics, science, and philosophy to the rise of such concepts as the law, sacrifice, democracy, and the soul—offers an illuminated path to a greater understanding of our world and ourselves.

A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

Ideas

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.

An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

Modern Mind

The distinguished historian and author of The Medici Conspiracy examines atheism as a modern intellectual achievement that has motivated individuals to pursue invention and self-reliance, citing the accomplishments of secular philosophers, scientists and artists who have worked in the absence of religious belief.

How We Have Sought to Live Since the Death of God

The Age of Atheists

Cecilia Todeschini

Traces the network of dealers and smugglers who have placed stolen European artifacts into the hands of museums and wealthy collectors.

Organized Crime, Looted Antiquities, Rogue Museums

The Medici Conspiracy

ateşten Freud'a

Fikirler tarihi

Originally published in Great Britain in 2016 with different subtitle: Convergence: the deepest idea in the universe.

The Idea at the Heart of Science

Convergence

A history of the twentieth century which covers all the ideas, people, great events, literary and artistic movements, scientific discoveries which have shaped the twentieth century. Terrible 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 encyclopedic. 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.

The People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind : a History

A Terrible Beauty

A behind-the-scenes look at the world's art market reveals houses that have shaped tastes in art and created record-breaking sales for art masterpieces

The Rise of the Modern Art Market

From Manet to Manhattan

Kia Abdullah

In August 2014, author Kia Abdullah and photographer Peter Watson quit their jobs and left London for their first trip around the world. With years of exploring behind them already, they thought they knew everything there was to know about long-term travel. Yet, somehow, they still "offered papaya" in Colombia, got a funny tummy in Tonga, fell off a bike in Bora Bora and broke down in Bolivia (in more ways than one). Fast forward two years and they're far more wise and a little less cocky. Through personal anecdotes mixed with succinct travel advice, they tell you everything you need to know about life on the road, from mind-hacking taxi drivers into accepting your fare to the number one rule for not looking like a douche. Their lessons learned are read by 100,000 people every month at atlasandboots.com and are gathered here in an indispensable guide to your first time around the world.

Don't Offer Papaya: 101 Tips for Your First Time Around the World

Capo

historia intelectual de la humanidad

Rosie Watson

Peter Watson tells the story of his five year investigation into Sotheby's and his discovery of practices that include the facilitation of smuggling, the sale of antiquities known to have been stolen from tombs, and the rigging of the Art Index Market.

The Inside Story

Sotheby's

Es difícil calificar un libro que nos ofrece nada menos que el patrimonio intelectual de la humanidad. No se encontrará en sus páginas la majestad de los reyes, o el fragor de las batallas, sino la belleza de las intuiciones, las ideas y las invenciones que, desde la noche de los tiempos, ha desarrollado el hombre para mejorar su condición y su vida. Peter Watson –autor de la celebrada Historia intelectual del siglo XX— se remonta a casi tres millones de años atrás, con la invención del hacha de sílex, para explorar los primeros lenguajes, el nacimiento de los dioses, el origen del arte, la filosofía y la ciencia, o las profundas consecuencias de la creación del dinero. Describe la aparición de la escritura, las ideas de justicia y derecho o la noción del alma, y explica cómo se concibieron los números, cómo se inventaron la rueda, el papel, la brújula, la imprenta o el telégrafo, cómo surgieron la filosofía y la ciencia, la medicina, la economía y el capitalismo. El autor estudia las conexiones en el tiempo y en el espacio de las ideas de filósofos, juristas, líderes religiosos, descubridores, inventores, creadores y pensadores, desde el Gilgamesh hasta Sigmund Freud, e identifica las tres ideas que, en su opinión, más han influido en la historia de la humanidad: el alma, la invención de Europa y el método científico. Todo está en este libro, desde la conquista del fuego hasta la tecnología punta de nuestros días. Pero también la conciencia de que el progreso no ha sido constante en el tiempo ni ha afectado –ni afecta- por igual a toda la humanidad. Con razón nos dice Watson que la vida intelectual, que es la dimensión más importante y satisfactoria de nuestra existencia, es cosa frágil, que se quiebra o destruye con gran facilidad. Por eso este libro, que John Gray ha calificado de “obra maestra de la historiografía”, plantea tantas preguntas. Y trata de responder a ellas.

Historia intelectual de la humanidad

Landscape of Lies

The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli—tomb raiders— who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous exposés of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.

Peter Watson

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