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The Map of Knowledge

A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found

A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found

A Thousand-Year History of How Classical Ideas Were Lost and Found

By Violet Moller

By Violet Moller

By Violet Moller

By Violet Moller

By Violet Moller
Read by Susan Duerden

By Violet Moller
Read by Susan Duerden

Best Seller
Paperback $18.95

Apr 14, 2020 | ISBN 9781101974063

Ebook $14.99

May 14, 2019 | ISBN 9780385541770

Audiobook Download $17.50

May 14, 2019 | 527 Minutes

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    The Map of Knowledge by Violet Moller
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    Apr 14, 2020 | ISBN 9781101974063

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      Apr 14, 2020 | ISBN 9781101974063

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    About The Map of Knowledge

    After the fall of Rome, as civilizations collapsed and libraries burned, ancient knowledge that would eventually fuel the Renaissance was at risk of being lost. This thrilling history tracks three crucial books as they were passed hand to hand through seven cities during a perilous thousand-year journey of survival. After the great library at Alexandria was destroyed, Baghdad, Cordoba, Toledo, Salerno, and Palermo were rare outposts of knowledge in a dark world, where dedicated scholars collected, translated, and shared texts. Violet Moller’s The Map of Knowledge takes us into the sparkling intellectual life that flourished there, highlighting the crucial role played by Arab scholars in improving the cornerstone ideas of Western thought. She shows us how foundational works on math, astronomy, and medicine by Euclid, Ptolemy, and Galen eventually reached Venice, the major center of scientific printing, where their legacy was assured—having been rescued by the passionate curiosity of generations of readers.

    About The Map of Knowledge

    “The Map of Knowledge is an endlessly fascinating book, rich in detail, capacious and humane in vision.”
    —Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

    After the Fall of Rome, when many of the great ideas of the ancient world were lost to the ravages of the Dark Ages, three crucial manuscripts passed hand to hand through seven Mediterranean cities and survived to fuel the revival of the Renaissance–an exciting debut history.

    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.

    About The Map of Knowledge

    “The Map of Knowledge is an endlessly fascinating book, rich in detail, capacious and humane in vision.”
    —Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

    After the Fall of Rome, when many of the great ideas of the ancient world were lost to the ravages of the Dark Ages, three crucial manuscripts passed hand to hand through seven Mediterranean cities and survived to fuel the revival of the Renaissance–an exciting debut history.

    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.

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    About Violet Moller

    VIOLET MOLLER is a historian and writer based near Oxford, England. She received a PhD in intellectual history from Edinburgh University, where she wrote her dissertation on the library of a sixteenth century scholar. She has written three pop reference… More about Violet Moller

    About Violet Moller

    VIOLET MOLLER is a historian and writer based near Oxford, England. She received a PhD in intellectual history from Edinburgh University, where she wrote her dissertation on the library of a sixteenth century scholar. She has written three pop reference… More about Violet Moller

    About Violet Moller

    VIOLET MOLLER is a historian and writer based near Oxford, England. She received a PhD in intellectual history from Edinburgh University, where she wrote her dissertation on the library of a sixteenth century scholar. She has written three pop reference… More about Violet Moller

    Product Details

    Category: Science | Ancient World History

    Paperback | $18.95
    Published by Anchor
    Apr 14, 2020 | 352 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9781101974063

    Category: Science | Ancient World History

    Ebook | $14.99
    Published by Anchor
    May 14, 2019 | 336 Pages | ISBN 9780385541770

    Category: Science | Ancient World History | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $17.50
    Published by Random House Audio
    May 14, 2019 | 527 Minutes | ISBN 9781984891624
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    Praise

    “Moller brings to life the ways in which knowledge reached us from antiquity to the present day in a book that is as delightful as it is readable.” —Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

    “Superb. . . . Ambitious but concise, deeply researched but elegantly written, and very entertaining, The Map of Knowledge is popular intellectual history at its best.” —The Telegraph (UK)

    “An endlessly fascinating book, rich in detail, capacious and humane in vision.” —Stephen Greenblatt, author of Swerve: How the World Became Modern
     
    “The reader is invited to marvel at how multicultural the ancient world was, and to consider how the foundational knowledge of the Western world . . . was painstakingly preserved, analyzed, and innovated upon for almost 1,000 years.” —The Washington Post

    “Fascinating. . . . A picturesque tour of a series of fabulously wealthy civilizations. . . . Moller brings the wonders of the medieval Muslim empires vividly to life and you’re left yearning for more.” —The Times (London)
     
    “Unusual and well-crafted. . . . An impressive, wide-ranging examination of what might be called premodern intellectual and cultural geography.” —Publishers Weekly
     
    “An epic treasure hunt into the highways and byways of stored knowledge across faiths and continents.” —John Agard, poet and judge, Royal Society of Literature 2016 Jerwood Award 

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