Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the UnexpectedThis provocative new collection of essays by a Pulitzer Prize winner deals with the challenging themes of discovery and surprise in history. Cleopatra's Nose is not a miscellany but rather a selection of recent essays illustrating specific subjects that have preoccupied Boorstin for several decades. Tantalizing themes all: How sometimes discovery only increases our ignorance. What were the specific historical opportunities in the New World? How has the fourth kingdom - the kingdom of machines - contradicted Darwinian expectations, contributed to a confusion of statistics, created the need for the unnecessary, and highlighted the paradoxes of science and the politics of common sense? In a "personal postscript", Boorstin gives us a memorable and affectionate portrait of his father and optimistically celebrates the United States as the Land of the Unexpected. |
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Page 95
... original design to be ex- tended happily paralleled the capacity of the Federal Union to be enlarged and of the Constitution to be amended . The hope of the Framers of the Constitution for a new nation , fulfilling and ex- ceeding Old ...
... original design to be ex- tended happily paralleled the capacity of the Federal Union to be enlarged and of the Constitution to be amended . The hope of the Framers of the Constitution for a new nation , fulfilling and ex- ceeding Old ...
Page 166
... original sin , for which Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden , was the progenitor of the labor theory of value . " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread , " God warned Adam , " till thou return unto the ground ...
... original sin , for which Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden , was the progenitor of the labor theory of value . " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread , " God warned Adam , " till thou return unto the ground ...
Page 202
... the advantage , before their original publication , of the counsel and encouragement of my incomparable companion and principal editor , Ruth F. Boorstin , who conceived and edited this vol- ume . Index 202 Acknowledgments.
... the advantage , before their original publication , of the counsel and encouragement of my incomparable companion and principal editor , Ruth F. Boorstin , who conceived and edited this vol- ume . Index 202 Acknowledgments.
Contents
Foreword ix | 1 |
The Cultures of Pride and Awe | 18 |
Discoverers and Inventors | 31 |
Copyright | |
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