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Stephen Trombley

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A Very Short History of Western Thought Kindle Edition

by Stephen Trombley (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 21 ratings

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A masterly distillation of two-and-a-half millennia of intellectual history, and a readable and entertaining crash course in Western philosophy

Short, sharp, and entertaining, this survey covers the development of all aspects of the
Western philosophical tradition from the ancient Greeks to the present day. No major representative of any significant strand of Western thought escapes the author's attention: the Christian Scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages, the great philosophers of the Enlightenment, the German idealists from Kant to Hegel; the utilitarians Bentham and Mill; the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau; Kierkegaard and the existentialists; the analytic philosophers Russell, Moore, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein; and—last but not least—the four shapers-in-chief of our modern world: Karl Marx, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephen Trombley is a writer, editor, Emmy Award–winning filmmaker, and president of the independent film and television production company Worldview Pictures. He was editor of the highly acclaimed The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00KK6BAY4
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atlantic Books; Main edition (June 1, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 1, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1281 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 237 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,103,812 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #330 in History of Philosophy & Schools of Thought eBooks
- #5,252 in World History (Kindle Store)
- #6,480 in Social & Cultural History

Customer Reviews:
4.5 21 ratings

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4.5 out of 5

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Dustbuny48

An exceptional read

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2017

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Fascinating insight and an excellent read

One person found this helpful

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Richard B. Schwartz

A Charming, Brief Read

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2019

The striking thing about this book is that it was written (very competently) by a filmmaker (among other things) rather than an academic philosopher. The fact that he was relying on the materials in a local public library is even more striking. The book really is a history of western thought, but, of course, such a history (in ca. 250 small pages) is necessarily abbreviated. Some thinkers receive a paragraph or two; the most important receive several pages. The section on the preSocratics is helpful, as is the extended discussion of the differences between Continental and Analytic Philosophy. I like his respect for Hume but feel that he gives Wittgenstein short shrift (in comparison with his regard for Julia Kristeva, e.g.). The modern period, i.e., the 20th-21st centuries is particularly difficult because the number of thinkers with whom one must conjure is very long and the page constraints are truly constraining. This portion of the book is more of a motorcycle ride through the Louvre than a studied history.

The writing is lucid throughout and generous, perhaps to a fault. He quotes Schopenhauer's notion that crabbed prose generally indicates crabbed and flawed thought but then dubs some nearly-unreadable thinkers as challenging rather than (as some would) fraudulent. This is another way of saying that the history is 'balanced' rather than judicial and judicious (or, some would say, judgmental).

The bottom line is that this is a 'good read'. It is too brief, really, to encompass its subject to a minimally satisfactory degree, but it is charming and clear and ably written—the perfect accompaniment to a quiet afternoon in a comfortable chair with a glass of fortified wine. It requires some previous knowledge of the subject but it is accessible for every serious reader.

One person found this helpful

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Gabe

A pleasant surprise

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2015

I recently joined Kindle Unlimited, and there's a definite lack of quality intellectual writing available. So I was happy to stumble across this book, a solid philosophical effort.

It's no small task to distill the history of western thought into a short book, but Mr. Trombley not only makes it clear and easily understood, but also fun and exciting. He collects the various periods of thought, and presents them as a continuing dialogue of ideas. It's a good stepping stone to deeper inquiry.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Bankim Raval

Worth buying.

Reviewed in India on April 9, 2021

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A very handy beautiful and well written book. Nice cover, pages, binding and print. Worth buying.

Rutherbooks

A fine cartographer

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2015

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Trombley's overview is precise and (generally) accessible to the lay reader. He charts the history of thought by drawing clear threads across ages and between disciplines. An excellent introduction, if one remembers that the map is not the territory.

One person found this helpful

Gazza

A Short History of Western Thought

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 1, 2018

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I know this was meant to be short, but this is the problem. As soon as you start to get interested in a particular thinker, and would like to read more, the story ends. As a result, you are left wanting more and need to seek out further works so you can get a fuller picture of the philosophers’ ideas and arguments. But I suppose this is the point of a book like this; they are to whet one’s appetite for more, and in this case the book is successful. It’s also true to say that books like this often, though I would say rather unfairly, get compared to Bertrand Russell’s history of philosophy that covers around 600 pages and gives greater treatment to philosophers and their ideas. Yet for people not versed in philosophy, this book is certainly a good starting point. It also gives a flavour of the thinkers themselves by including many boxed-off quotations from original works.

I hope you find my review helpful.

One person found this helpful

TJ

Excellant book and service

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

Brilliant, informed & written for the layman

One person found this helpful

Russell Fell

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 14, 2015