| |
| |
| Introduction : the most important ideas in history - some candidates | |
| |
| |
| Prologue : the discovery of time | |
| |
| |
| |
| Lucy to Gilgamesh : the evolution of imagination | |
| |
| |
| |
| Ideas before language | |
| |
| |
| |
| The emergence of language and the conquest of cold | |
| |
| |
| |
| The birth of the gods, the evolution of house and home | |
| |
| |
| |
| Cities of wisdom | |
| |
| |
| |
| Isaiah to Zhu Xi : the romance of the soul | |
| |
| |
| |
| Sacrifice, soul, saviour : 'the spiritual breakthrough' | |
| |
| |
| |
| The origins of science, philosophy and the humanities | |
| |
| |
| |
| The ideas of Israel, the idea of Jesus | |
| |
| |
| |
| Alexandria, occident and orient in the year 0 | |
| |
| |
| |
| Law, Latin, literacy and the liberal arts | |
| |
| |
| |
| Pagans and Christians, Mediterranean and Germanic traditions | |
| |
| |
| |
| The near-death of the book, the birth of Christian art | |
| |
| |
| |
| Falsafah and al-Jabr in Baghdad and Toledo | |
| |
| |
| |
| Hindu numerals, Sanskrit, Vedanta | |
| |
| |
| |
| China's scholar-elite, Lixue and the culture of the brush | |
| |
| |
| |
| The great hinge of history : European acceleration | |
| |
| |
| |
| The idea of Europe | |
| |
| |
| |
| Aquinas to Jefferson : the attack on authority, the idea of the secular and the birth of modern individualism | |
| |
| |
| |
| 'Half-way between God and Man' : the techniques of papal thought-control | |
| |
| |
| |
| The spread of learning and the rise of accuracy | |
| |
| |
| |
| The arrival of the secular : capitalism, humanism, individualism | |
| |
| |
| |
| The explosion of the imagination | |
| |
| |
| |
| The mental horizon of Christopher Columbus | |
| |
| |
| |
| The 'Indian' mind : ideas in the new world | |
| |
| |
| |
| History heads north : the intellectual impact of Protestantism | |
| |
| |
| |
| The genius of the experiment | |
| |
| |
| |
| Liberty, property and community : origins of conservatism and liberalism | |
| |
| |
| |
| The 'atheist scare' scare and the advent of doubt | |
| |
| |
| |
| From soul to mind : the search for the laws of human nature | |
| |
| |
| |
| The idea of the factory and its consequences | |
| |
| |
| |
| The invention of America | |
| |
| |
| |
| Vico to Freud : parallel truths : the modern incoherence | |
| |
| |
| |
| The oriental renaissance | |
| |
| |
| |
| The great reversal of values - romanticism | |
| |
| |
| |
| The rise of history, pre-history and deep time | |
| |
| |
| |
| New ideas about human order : the origins of social science and statistics | |
| |
| |
| |
| The uses and abuses of nationalism and imperialism | |
| |
| |
| |
| The American mind and the modern university | |
| |
| |
| |
| Enemies of the cross and the Qur'an - the end of the soul | |
| |
| |
| |
| Modernism and the discovery of the unconscious | |
| |
| |
| Conclusion : the electron, the elements and the elusive self | |