Best Selling Books by Jacob Bronowski

Discusses science as a characteristic part of human activity and as an effort to render the world predictable.

Dr Jacob Bronowksi''s The Ascent of Man traces the development of human society through our understanding of science. First published in 1973 to accompany the groundbreaking BBC television series, it is considered one of the first works of ''popular science'', illuminating the historical and social context of scientific development for a generation of readers. In his highly accessible style, Dr Bronowski discusses human invention from the flint tool to geometry, agriculture to genetics, and from alchemy to the theory of relativity, showing how they all are expressions of our ability to understand and control nature. In this new paperback edition, The Ascent of Man inspires, influences and informs as profoundly as ever.

Science and Human Values was originally a lecture by Jacob Bronowski at MIT in 1953. Published five years later, it opens unforgettably with Bronowski''s description of Nagasaki in 1945: ''a bare waste of ashes'', making him acutely aware of science''s power both for good and for evil. After such knowledge, what forgiveness? With care and erudition Bronowski argues that scientific endeavour is an essentially creative act, part of a great shared human interest in ourselves and the world around us; and, routinely, a process of trial-and-error, the end of which is not - cannot be - preordained. ''Above all, Bronowski strove to make science and technology answerable to social progress, to ''human values.'' He anticipated the deepening gap between the ''two cultures'' and knew that the sciences must be restored to a place in political common sense.'' George Steiner

Traces the development of thought through historical movements and periods from 1500 to 1830.

“A gem of enlightenment. . . . One rejoices in Bronowski’s dedication to the identity of acts of creativity and of imagination, whether in Blake or Yeats or Einstein or Heisenberg.”—Kirkus Reviews “According to Bronowski, our account of the world is dictated by our biology: how we perceive, imagine, symbolize, etc. He proposes to explain how we receive and translate our experience of the world so that we achieve knowledge. He examines the mechanisms of our perception; the origin and nature of natural language; formal systems and scientific discourse; and how science, as a systematic attempt to establish closed systems one after another, progresses by exploring its own errors and new but unforeseen connections. . . . A delightful look at the inquiring mind.”—Library Journal “Eminently enjoyable to read, with a good story or ‘bon mot’ on every page.”—Nature “A well-written and brilliantly presented defense of the scientific enterprise which could be especially valuable to scientists and to teachers of science at all levels.”—AAAS Science Books & Films Contents 1. The Mind as an Instrument for Understanding 2. The Evolution and Power of Symbolic Language 3. Knowledge as Algorithm and as Metaphor 4. The Laws of Nature and the Nature of Laws 5. Error, Progress, and the Concept of Time 6. Law and Individual Responsibility

"Jacob Bronowski truly educated an enormous number of members of that diffuse population usually referred to, with a hint of condescension, as "educated laymen" through his widely shared television series on the concepts of science and through such ... books as The Identity of Man and The Ascent of Man. This volume extends the process to a further level of insight, and it may be more than suggestive that its final essay is entitled "The Fulfillment of Man." Bronowski ... felt that if human beings are taken seriously, they can be led to respond to serious and difficult subjects that relate to the deepest aspects of nature, both beyond and within themselves. A Sense of the Future ... is a collection of essays that can be read independently as self-contained, delimited presentations; ... the book is more than the sum of these individual essays--it is a unified whole in which Bronowski''s most abiding concerns are interrelated, juxtaposed, and tested for consistency in various intellectual contexts. The major unifying theme of the work is the intensely creative and human nature of the scientific enterprise--its kinship, at the highest levels of individual achievement, with comparable manifestations of the artistic imagination, and its ethical imperatives, evolved within the community of scientists over the centuries, which both embody and forge the values of civilized life at large. Still, the book''s diversity of topics is as striking as the unity of its aim. Among the subjects within the realm of Bronowski''s mind that are presented here are the limitations of formal logic and experimental methods, the epistemology of science, the distinctive nature of human language and the human mind, and the bases of biological and cultural evolution. Bronowski also contrasts the findings of science as the "here and now" of man''s understanding with the ongoing activity of science as the open-ended search for truth, and he undertakes to demonstrate that the factual, individual ''is'' and the ethical, societal ''ought'' can be derived each from the other"--From jacket.

Bronowski was fascinated by William Blake for much of his life. His first book about him, A Man Without a Mask , was published in 1944. In 1958 his famous Penguin selection of Blake''s poems and letters was published. As further testimony to Bronowski''s enthusiasm it should be noted that the final plate in the book of his great TV series The Ascent of Man is Blake''s frontispiece to Songs of Experience . William Blake and the Age of Revolution , first published in 1965, is, in some ways, a revised edition of A Man Without a Mask, in others, a new book. In it Bronowski gives a stimulating interpretation of Blake''s art and poetry in the context of the revolutionary period in which he was working. Like all of Bronowski''s writings it dazzles with wide-ranging erudition, making this work far removed from conventional literary criticism.

Mathematician, poet, philosopher, life scientist, playwright, teacher, Jacob Bronowski could readily be referred to as a Renaissance Man. But in the historical context that would do him a disservice: he is, par excellence, a Twentieth Century Man, who has traced the arts and sciences of earlier centuries and especially those of his own time to their common root in the uniquely human imagination.Bronowski is the author of such widely read books as The Ascent of Man and Science and Human Values. In 1977, The MIT Press published A Sense of the Future: Essays in Natural Philosophy. In those essays, the emphasis is on scientific questions, but in a number of them the notion of "art as a mode of knowledge" is invoked to make the science clearer and its human dimension more vivid. The Visionary Eye serves as a companion volume: here the emphasis is on the arts and humanities, but (as the subtitle suggests) "science as a mode of imagination" comes into play to extend the reach of the visionary eye.The Visionary Eye contains eleven essays: "The Nature of Art," "The Imaginative Mind in Art," "The Imaginative Mind in Science," "The Shape of Things," "Architecture as a Science and Architecture as an Art," and Art as a Mode of Knowledge, Bronowski''s A. W. Mellon Lectures given at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The essays discuss examples taken from across the spectrum of the arts, past and present -- music, poetry, painting and sculpture, architecture, industrial design, and engineering artifacts -- in the coherent context of Bronowski''s view of the human creative process.

Presents the never-ending life cycle of a carbon atom from its birth in a star billions of years ago to the present time where it perhaps is a part of your body.

Este clásico del doctor Bronowski traza el desarrollo de la sociedad humana a través de nuestra comprensión de la ciencia. Publicado en 1973 junto con una innovadora serie de televisión de la BBC, es considerado una de las primeras obras de divulgación científica, que ilumina el contexto histórico y social del desarrollo científico para una generación de lectores. Bronowski analiza la invención humana desde la herramienta de pedernal a la geometría, desde la agricultura a la genética y desde la alquimia a la teoría de la relatividad, mostrando cómo todas ellas son expresiones de nuestra capacidad de comprender y controlar la naturaleza. Un viaje a través de la historia intelectual con el fin de encontrar "los grandes monumentos de la invención humana": la isla de Pascua, Machu Picchu, la biblioteca de Newton y el observatorio de Gauss, la Alhambra y las cuevas de Altamira. En cada lugar, Bronowski considera las cualidades del pensamiento y la imaginación que hicieron que el hombre, primero, analizara el mundo físico para, a continuación, explorar las leyes y estructuras invisibles por encima y por debajo de su superficie. El hombre asciende al descubrir la plenitud de sus propios dones, y lo que va creando en el camino son "monumentos" en las etapas de su comprensión de la naturaleza y de sí mismo.

最後的文藝復興人 最早的人類大歷史 從已知用火到地球未來 十三堂橫跨百萬年的的文明大講堂 七○年代BBC傳奇科學節目、當代科普書先驅 布羅諾斯基不朽名著 建築大師漢寶德經典譯作 復刻重現 「最後的文藝復興人」這個比喻已成為陳腔濫調， 不過在極少數的情況下，這詞若能完美描繪事實，我們也願欣然接受， 說到「最後的文藝復興人」，大概非本書作者布羅諾斯基莫屬了。 有哪位科學家能與布羅諾斯基一樣，不僅能天衣無縫地在作品中 交織自身的科學知識與歷史、藝術、人類學、文學、哲學等豐厚素養， 同時又闡述得如此輕盈，毫不費力，且不淪於自我誇耀？ 本書每一頁都有值得引述、妥善珍藏的格言， 也可貼在門上昭告天下，甚至能夠當成偉大科學家的墓誌銘。 如此震撼人心的文字，不需要依靠提高的聲調，或是浮誇的眼淚裝飾。 布羅諾斯基筆下文字的魅力，來自他冷靜、仁慈、樸實的語調， 以及他直直望向鏡頭時，口中發出的迷人捲舌R音， 耀眼的閃光燈如同無垠黑夜中的烽火。 科學中確實存在魔術，能為人類帶來幫助的那種魔術，同時也存在詩意， 而本書的每一頁都洋溢著這種魔術般的詩意。 ——理查・道金斯（Richard Dawkins） 【本書特色】 ★ 當代人類文明史、大歷史類「科普書先驅」，全球暢銷數百萬冊！ ★ 本書電視版獲英國電影協會評為「世界百大電視節目」！ ★ 一代建築教育家漢寶德代表譯作，絕版多年，全新編校，經典復刻重現！ ★ 《自私的基因》作者理察‧道金斯（Richard Dawkins）推薦序！ ★ 全書搭配五十幅經典圖像，還原人類文明精采時刻！ 【內容簡介】 一九七三年，BBC推出共十三集的電視紀錄片《文明的躍昇》，由學者布羅諾斯基撰寫腳本、錄製旁白，為當代讀者描繪科學發展背後的歷史與社會背景，剖析人類文明與科技間的互動。節目在當時蔚為創舉，更曾獲英國電影協會評為「世界百大電視節目」。節目播出後，BBC亦將腳本整理成本書《文明的躍昇》，暢銷多年，獲占「科普書先驅」的經典地位。書中十三章內容與各集影片對應，兼具數學家、科學史家身分的布羅諾斯基，細密梳理自「已知用火」的原初之世、漁獵遊牧、農業文明，直到工業革命、二十世紀上半的科學與文明進程，由石器時代談到幾何學、由農業興起直通遺傳學、再由鍊金術推及相對論，逐步展現人類如何嘗試理解、掌握自然法則的宏大進程，風格深入淺出，深受觀眾與讀者歡迎。布羅諾斯基認為，人文與科學的「兩種文化」對立勢態對知識之推進戕害甚巨，特以此書擊破界限，成就「人文科普」的一代名著。建築大師漢寶德彼時深受感召，特於七○年代譯介國內，以期突破文藝界與科學界的智識隔閡，是為當年的旱漠之花，啟發無數讀者，迴響廣大。新版採用漢先生的經典譯本復刻，重新校訂，願將作者與譯者的時代精神延續無窮。

The collection consists of the papers arising out of the professional work of Jacob Bronowski. This includes research material and manuscripts for his many books, essays and lectures; correspondence relating to their publication; and correspondence with scientists, academics, etc. relating to this work.