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"The foundations of modern knowledge--philosophy, math, astronomy, geography--were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed. Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean--rare centers of knowledge in a dark world, where scholars supported by enlightened heads of state collected, translated and shared manuscripts. In 8th century Baghdad, Arab discoveries augmented Greek learning. Exchange within the thriving Muslim world brought that knowledge to Cordoba, Spain. Toledo became a famous center of translation from Arabic into Latin, a portal through which Greek and Arab ideas reached Western Europe. Salerno, on the Italian coast, was the great center of medical studies, and Sicily, ancient colony of the Greeks, was one of the few places in the West to retain contact with Greek culture and language. Scholars in these cities helped classical ideas make their way to Venice in the 15th century, where printers thrived and the Renaissance took root. The Map of Knowledge follows three key texts--Euclid's Elements, Ptolemy's The Almagest, and Galen's writings on medicine--on a perilous journey driven by insatiable curiosity about the world"--… (more)
User reviews
She looks at the different civilizations which eagerly took up the work, even while barbarian
I read about 2/3 and it's readably written, but there's just SO MANY facts that I found myself forgetting what I'd learned a few chapters back. As a topic that many readers will know little about, the plethora of alien names, centuries of history just felt TOO MUCH!
At the end of our own second millennium, we have also seen the Nazi and Communist destruction of books and censorship in Western and Eastern Europe, the destruction of Aztec literature in the Americas, the destruction of Chinese literature by Japanese forces in Asia and religious destruction in the Middle East.
While in America we are blessed with history of some tolerance, such as Thomas Jefferson's quote: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" we also have seen the destruction of books as Nazi Germany strove to wipe out European Jewish culture with the systematic destruction of books and manuscripts. Yet the humanist idea of the "Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge" is still a powerful force, although often unreckoned.
So the survival of books from ancient times to the present is still a modern ideal, but is also an uphill struggle. It is always easier to destroy than to build, and the Map of Knowledge shows the multi-century attempts to preserve and maintain intellectual ideas. Such basic ideas such as the zero, was saved through the years to abruptly change the mathematics of the world.
A good book and I liked it, although it covers a lot of geography and many new names and places from different cultures and languages. Recommended for private collections of the history of science, as well as for larger public and college libraries.