Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our FutureKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 08.06.2011 - 224 Seiten At a time when we are reexamining our values, reeling from the pace of change, witnessing the clash between good instincts and "pragmatism," dealing with the angst of a new millennium, Neil Postman, one of our most distinguished observers of contemporary society, provides for us a source of guidance and inspiration. In Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century he revisits the Enlightenment, that great flowering of ideas that provided a humane direction for the future -- ideas that formed our nation and that we would do well to embrace anew. He turns our attention to Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Kant, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, and to their then-radical thinking about inductive science, religious and political freedom, popular education, rational commerce, the nation-state, progress, and happiness. Postman calls for a future connected to traditions that provide sane authority and meaningful purpose -- as opposed to an overreliance on technology and an increasing disregard for the lessons of history. And he argues passionately for specific new guidelines in the education of our children, with renewed emphasis on developing the intellect as successfully as we are developing a computer-driven world. Witty, provocative, and brilliantly reasoned, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century is Neil Postman's most radical, and most commonsensical, book yet. |
Inhalt
| 3 | |
CHAPTER | 21 |
CHAPTER THREE | 36 |
CHAPTER FOUR | 58 |
CHAPTER FIVE | 82 |
CHAPTER | 99 |
CHAPTER SEVEN | 116 |
Democracy | 136 |
CHAPTER NINE | 155 |
APPENDIX I | 175 |
APPENDIX III | 185 |
Notes | 195 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future Neil Postman Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2000 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
A. S. Neill Adam Smith adulthood adults American answer argued authority believe Bill Gates called chapter child childhood claim cloned conception course creation science culture democracy Derrida Diderot eighteenth century Emile Encyclopédie Enlightenment essay example fact Franklin Friedrich Froebel future human Hume imagine intellectual Internet invented Jean Baudrillard Jefferson John Locke Jonathan Swift knowledge language Lewis Mumford Locke Luddite matter mean ment mind modern moral movable type narrative nature Neil Postman newspapers nineteenth century Nonetheless Paine Pestalozzi philosophes political postmodern printed word printing press problem prose question rationalists reality reason refer religion religious require Rousseau scientific scientists sense skepticism social solved speak story suggest teach teachers teenth century television tell theory things thought tion Tocqueville truth twentieth University Voltaire wisdom writing wrote York young