Description

A TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘Anaximander is a delight and so is this book’ — James McConnachie, Sunday Times

Now widely available in English for the first time, this is Carlo Rovelli’s first book: the thrilling story of a little-known man who created one of the greatest intellectual revolutions

Over two thousand years ago, one man changed the way we see the world.

Since the dawn of civilization, humans had believed in the heavens above and the Earth below. Then, on the Ionian coast, a Greek philosopher named Anaximander set in motion a revolution. He not only conceived that the Earth floats in space, but also that animals evolve, that storms and earthquakes are natural, not supernatural, that the world can be mapped and, above all, that progress is made by the endless search for knowledge.

Carlo Rovelli’s first book, now widely available in English, tells the origin story of scientific thinking: our rebellious ability to reimagine the world, again and again.

Translated by Marion Lignana Rosenberg

Publisher Review

Bestselling physicist Carlo Rovelli argues in this enjoyable and provocative little book that a little-known Greek philosopher invented the idea of the cosmos — Tim Adams * Observer * Carlo Rovelli’s Anaximander is a knockout: there’s nobody like Rovelli for bridging the Two Cultures, and I was enlarged by his lucid, optimistic account, full of fascinating historical nuggets, of what scientists do and why it’s exciting — Sam Leith * TLS , Best Books of the Year * Rovelli is a very good scientist and a very good writer. He explains some of the most conceptually difficult and densest areas of physics lightly and breezily. Here, he tells the story of an ancient thinker who had a revolutionary idea about the Earth’s place in the cosmos — Tom Whipple * The Times * Anaximander is a delight and so is this book — James McConnachie * Sunday Times * As Rovelli’s fans will expect, this book is excellent. It is never less than engaging, and enviably compendious — Tim Smith-Laing * The Telegraph * A celebration of the scientific spirit of inquiry and the remarkable achievements of one man more than 2,500 years ago — John Sellars * TLS * A bold and persuasive case that this ancient Greek philosopher scientist was the founder of critical thinking — Adam Rutherford * Start the Week, BBC Radio 4 * This is seriously astounding. So lucid, so imaginative, so subtle, and so large in scope. It’s like the best primer you can imagine for the non-scientist on why what you think you know about Ptolemy and Copernicus, or Popper and Kuhn, is not quite right — Sam Leith * Twitter *