Word: boorstins
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...first step was to confine time within the bounds of human control. Every student of David S. Landes, Coolidge Professor of History, knows all too well how important clocks are for the development of modern society. Boorstin divides The Discoverers into four parts; he devotes the first to "Time." In it, he shows the origins and importance of such commonplaces as the seven-day week and the 24-hour day. "There are few greater revolutions in human history," he writes, "than this movement from the seasonal...hour to the equal hour. Here was man's declaration of independence from...
...great explorers who turned geographic fantasy into maps of reality. "Nature" speaks of anatomy; as explorers once wouldn't sail the Atlantic became they believed there was no land to be found. So doctors wouldn't study the body because they thought they already knew all its organs. Boorstin shows the truth of the old chestnut: The first step towards knowledge is to admit one's ignorance. This was as true for the study of society as for that of health. The book's final section, "Society," is its most diverse and complicated, showing how facts replaced myths...
...EXCITEMENT over the growth of discovery, Boorstin is concerned about the barriers that contain discovery--fear, complacency, and secrecy. Each barrier is illustrated with varied and memorable anecdotes. The first Portuguese navigators, for example, took fright at the shallow waters of Cape Bojador in Africa. Yet as soon as one ship had rounded the Cape, these same men dared sail any sea, just as the test pilots in The Right Stuff would fly at any speed after Chuck Yeager broke the once terrifying sound barrier...
...worst enemy of truth, according to Boorstin, is to keep knowledge secret. Warlike states, monopolistic guilds, and closemouthed alchemists all conspired to leave outsiders in the dark. Even Leonardo da Vinci held back the progress of anatomy by keeping to himself his detailed drawings and studies of the human body. "...Despite his consummate art, his industry, and his unexcelled powers of observation, Leonardo added only to his own knowledge, and little or nothing to the anatomical knowledge of his time. Nor were his own observations enriched as they might have been. For, as we shall see, the public forum...
...Boorstin feels strongly that the scholar has an ethical obligation to publish his work and to write for the widest possible audience. He has done both. His many historical books are written to intrigue the citizen as well as the student; they have succeeded, and his Pulitzer Prize is well-merited. Boorstin's faith in the printed word led him to rise at six every morning to write, while holding a more than fulltime job as Librarian of Congress. When The Discoverers quotes Samuel Johnson about writing his dictionary, it could well be referring to its own author; he worked...