The Creators

by Daniel J. Boorstin

Hardcover, 1992

Call number

909 20

Series

Boorstin's Histories (2)

Tags

nonfiction, history, hb, culled, coverguess mismatch

Genres

Publication

New York: Vintage Books, 1992

Pages

xiv; 811

Description

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.… (more)

Awards

Oklahoma Book Award (Winner — Non-Fiction — 1993)

Language

English

Original language

English

Original publication date

1992

Physical description

xiv, 811 p.; 8.27 inches

ISBN

9780394543956

Similar in this library

The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The fates of human societies by Jared Diamond

User reviews

LibraryThing member SaraPrindiville
Very long book. I liked it though. I think there was too much about books and not enough about painting and other visual arts. Made me more interested in classical life. Also I liked the parts about architecture. I learned that creative people don't every make much money or get recognized in their
Show More
 lifetimes. Very disheartening!
Show Less
5 more
LibraryThing member JNSelko
A remarkably readable and informative on the history of music and art.
LibraryThing member saturnloft
A very ambitious yet fascinating exploration of art history. Boorstin doesn't stop at the visual arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, etc); he also covers literature, music, and dance. Although I wished for illustrations in a few places where specific artworks were discussed, the
Show More
 sheer deluge of wonderfully meticulous story-telling made up for it.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Mirkwood
Ok, so far, what I have learned from reading this book is make certain you get the illustrated version. Otherwise you will do what I did and run down your phone battery googling everything.
I can't believe my library has an edition without illustrations.
It is a book about great art for heaven's
Show More
 sake!!
Show Less
LibraryThing member AliceAnna
Much drier than his Discoverers for the most part. You can't do a book like this without illustrations. It needed full color photographs, CDs of music and readings of great works. It was a class without the teacher, students and illustrations necessary to bring it to life.
LibraryThing member nx74defiant
I was surprised by how much the beginning is about religion. It starts with going over what different religions teach about how things came to be in existence. You definitively want the illustrated copy.

More

LibraryThing
Page: 0.3396 seconds