Scan barcode
Reviews
The Age of Genius: The Seventeenth Century and the Birth of the Modern Mind by A.C. Grayling
cupiscent's review
4.0
This book is basically the non-fiction backstory to Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (starting with [b:Quicksilver|823|Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, #1)|Neal Stephenson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1377095669s/823.jpg|1610031]). Except the Baroque Cycle manages to cover a lot more of the world. But this was up-front about its restrictions of location and scope: it was going to cover (Western) Europe in the 17th century and the changes that society underwent.
And it does it hard. It's a solid (both sturdy and dense) history book. It's often somewhat opaque (not assisted by the author's fondness for somewhat old-fashioned syntax and construction) especially when the author digs enthusiastically into the nitty-gritty of philosophy (obviously a favourite of his; not so much of mine), but in general it does a great job of laying out the moving and shaking elements of the period, with lots of interesting asides. (The power of postal services! Sweden's stint as a world power! The self-defeating stupidity of the Holy Roman Emperor!) It was, all in all, a good overview of the many ways in which 17th century mindset change manifested.
And then the conclusion of the book tacks on the compulsory "looking forward" bit about the ease of myth and the challenge of education that honestly made me wish that was the point of the book. But oh well.
(I didn't power through 20% of the book in one sitting; a lot of that page-length was the notes section.)
And it does it hard. It's a solid (both sturdy and dense) history book. It's often somewhat opaque (not assisted by the author's fondness for somewhat old-fashioned syntax and construction) especially when the author digs enthusiastically into the nitty-gritty of philosophy (obviously a favourite of his; not so much of mine), but in general it does a great job of laying out the moving and shaking elements of the period, with lots of interesting asides. (The power of postal services! Sweden's stint as a world power! The self-defeating stupidity of the Holy Roman Emperor!) It was, all in all, a good overview of the many ways in which 17th century mindset change manifested.
And then the conclusion of the book tacks on the compulsory "looking forward" bit about the ease of myth and the challenge of education that honestly made me wish that was the point of the book. But oh well.
(I didn't power through 20% of the book in one sitting; a lot of that page-length was the notes section.)
More...