Daniel J. Boorstin Libros

This second volume in "The Americans" trilogy deals with the crucial period of American history from the Revolution to the Civil War. Here we meet the people who shaped, and were shaped by, the American experience—the versatile New Englanders, the Transients and the Boosters. Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize.

By piecing the lives of selected individuals into a grand mosaic, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin explores the development of artistic innovation over 3,000 years. A hugely ambitious chronicle of the arts that Boorstin delivers with the scope that made his Discoverers a national bestseller.  Even as he tells the stories of such individual creators as Homer, Joyce, Giotto, Picasso, Handel, Wagner, and Virginia Woolf, Boorstin assembles them into a grand mosaic of aesthetic and intellectual invention.  In the process he tells us not only how great art (and great architecture and philosophy) is created, but where it comes from and how it has shaped and mirrored societies from Vedic India to the twentieth-century United States.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. A study of the last 100 years of American history.

An original history of man's greatest adventure: his search to discover the world around him. In the compendious history, Boorstin not only traces man's insatiable need to know, but also the obstacles to discovery and the illusion that knowledge can also put in our way. Covering time, the earth and the seas, nature and society, he gathers and analyzes stories of the man's profound quest to understand his world and the cosmos.

First published in 1962, this wonderfully provocative book introduced the notion of “pseudo-events”—events such as press conferences and presidential debates, which are manufactured solely in order to be reported—and the contemporary definition of celebrity as “a person who is known for his well-knownness.” Since then Daniel J. Boorstin’s prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any reader who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

Winner of the Bancroft Prize. "A superb panorama of life in America from the first settlements on through the white hot days of the Revolution." - Bruce Lancaster, Saturday Review

Who did what when from 4500 B.C. to the present day.

From the time of Socrates to today, humans have sought the answers to fundamental questions: Who are we? Why are we here? Previous bestsellers, The Discoverers & The Creators, told how we discovered the reality of our world, then celebrated artistic achievements. Boorstin now turns to the great figures in history who sought meaning & purpose in existence. He says Western culture has seen three grand epics of Seeking. There was 1st the heroic way of prophets & philosophers--men like Moses, Job, Socrates, Plato & Aristotle, as well as those in the communities of the early church & the Protestant Reformation--seeking salvation or truth from the god above or the reason within everyone. Then came an age of communal seeking, with people like Thucydides & Thomas More, Machiavelli & Voltaire pursuing civilization & the liberal spirit. Finally, there was an age of the social sciences, when man seemed ruled by the forces of history. Here are the stories of exceptional men such as Marx, Spengler, Toynbee, Carlyle, Emerson, Malraux, Bergson & Einstein. These thinkers still have the power to speak to us, not always so much for their answers as for their way of asking the questions that intrigue or obsess. This climax to his trilogy again shows Boorstin's ability to present challenging ideas coupled with sharp portraits of great writers & thinkers.

The 83 most important documents of the American past are presented with commentary by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Henry Steele Commager, and other distinguished historians. The selections span the spectrum of American history as it was made, and as it was lived.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Discoverers demonstrates the truth behind the aphorism that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the face of the world would have been changed. Boorstin goes on to uncover the elements of accident, improvisation and contradiction at the core of American institutions and beliefs.

V díle, svým záběrem monumentálním, se můžeme seznámit s nejvýznamějšími objeviteli všech dob i kontinentů. Autor nejprve probírá problematiku měření času a vznik příslušných přístrojů. Pak přichází na řadu cestování po souši, sestavování map, mořeplavectví a objevování nových světů se všemi důsledky pro život tehdejšího západního světa. V kapitolách o dějinách poznání přírody se seznamujeme s nejvýznamějšími astronomy, přírodovědci, lékaři, matematiky, fyziky i se vznikem vědeckých společností a počátky mezinárodní vědecké spolupráce. Závěrečný díl věnovaný společnosti začíná pamětí a knihtiskem. Kniha má encyklopedický charakter a čtenář v ní nalezne množství faktů a myšlenek z nejrůznějších oborů.

Klaus Harpprecht, geb. 1927, hat als Journalist unter anderem für RIAS, SFB und ZDF gearbeitet. Von 1966 bis 1969 war er Leiter des S. Fischer Verlags und von 1972 bis 1974 Chef der Schreibstube und Berater von Willy Brandt. Lebte zuletzt als freier Schriftsteller in Frankreich. Er starb am 21. September 2016. Publikationen u. a.: «Georg Forster oder Die Liebe zur Welt» (1990), «Thomas Mann. Eine Biographie» (1995), «Im Kanzleramt. Tagebuch der Jahre mit Willy Brandt» (2000), «Harald Poelchau – Ein Leben im Widerstand» (2004).