Why read A New History of the Humanities?

Book cover of A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present

Book description

Many histories of science have been written, but A New History of the Humanities offers the first overarching history of the humanities from Antiquity to the present. There are already historical studies of musicology, logic, art history, linguistics, and historiography, but this volume gathers these, and many other humanities disciplines,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A New History of the Humanities as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Herman Paul

Author

If anyone has helped establish the history of the humanities as a field of study, it is Rens Bod. His New History of the Humanities is a monument of erudition, covering the study of human meaning-making across disciplines, centuries, and cultures. It is admittedly a difficult pill to swallow for someone who believes that all understanding starts with in-depth listening and careful contextualization. Nonetheless, I admire the book for two reasons. Against the prevalent view that the humanities are a product of the nineteenth or twentieth century, Bod argues that we are late heirs to “a centuries-old humanistic tradition.”…

From Herman's list on The best books about the history of the humanities.