Ideas That Shaped Mankind flows from internationally respected historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto's views on the notion that man's capacity to produce ideas in itself brings about sweeping changes in the world. This ability, seen most profoundly in individual, startling moments of genius - or equally startling moments of chance - is what separates humans from the animals and allows humans to re-imagine the world in ever more complex designs. From the earliest ideas, including cannibalism and the idea of farming, to theories of relativity and chaos, ideas reshape the world in surprising and wholly unexpected ways. Science, agriculture, religion, art, politics - Professor Fernández-Armesto examines all these areas of thought and the moments in time when man's fertile intellect produced the sparks that set off blazes of change, even revolutions, that would forever alter the course of human history.
Lecture 1 The Idea of Ideas
Lecture 2 The Mind of the Hunter
Lecture 3 Of Ice and Mud
Lecture 4 From Settlement to Civilization
Lecture 5 Thus Spake Zarathustra
Lecture 6 The Age of Sages: Politics and Knowledge
Lecture 7 The Age of Sages: Religion
Lecture 8 Ideas About Religion
Lecture 9 The Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution
Lecture 10 The Enlightenment
Lecture 11 The Nineteenth Century
Lecture 12 A Century of Horrors
Lecture 13 The Restoration of Chaos
Lecture 14 The Age of Uncertainty