9780130979483

Comprehensive and accessible,Past to Presentencapsulates for readers essential readings from the fields of humanities, social science, and science in a single bookputting a "human face" on the great ideas that have changed our world.The book is divided into seven thematic parts that trace the history of important ideas from their roots to their current incarnations. Each of the 73 readings includes discussions that focus on the history of the idea, the writer's rhetorical strategies, and the context in which the piece was written.For anyone who is interested in exploring the evolutions of the great ideas of our world.

Rhetorical Contents

x

Preface

xiii

Introduction (Critical Reading, Using Rhetorical Patterns to Develop Ideas, Purposes for Writing, Solving a Problem, Arguing and Persuading)

1

(32)

The Individual Experience: Private Lives, Public Voices

33

(88)

A Princess Remembers

36

(13)

Gayatri Devi

from The Diary of Anne Frank

49

(14)

Anne Frank

I Have Nothing More to Say

63

(14)

Joan of Arc

Becoming a Man

77

(7)

Paul Monette

Letter to His Son

84

(7)

Lord Chesterfield

The Crystallization of Love

91

(9)

Stendhal

Letters to Fanny Brawne

100

(10)

John Keats

Reflections in Westminster Abbey

110

(4)

Joseph Addison

She Would Have Enjoyed It

114

(7)

George Bernard Shaw

The Collective Experience: The Human Condition

121

(88)

The Principle of Population

123

(6)

Thomas Robert Malthus

The Social Sense

129

(13)

Diane Ackerman

Rights of Man

142

(5)

Thomas Paine

To Make Them Stand in Fear

147

(5)

Kenneth M. Stampp

Learning to Read and Write

152

(6)

Frederick Douglass

Letter to My Nephew

158

(6)

James Baldwin

Decolonising the Mind

164

(9)

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Shooting an Elephant

173

(8)

George Orwell

The Turbid Ebb and Flow of Misery

181

(7)

Margaret Sanger

The Married Woman

188

(7)

Simone de Beanuvoir

The Wife Today

195

(14)

Marilyn Yalom

The Historical Dimension: The Importance of the Past

209

(102)

What Is History?

211

(13)

R. G. Collingwood

Concerning Egypt

224

(12)

Herodotus

Finding the Tomb

236

(8)

Howard Carter

Challenge and Response

244

(12)

Arnold J. Toynbee

The Social History of Satan

256

(12)

Elaine Pagels

On Heroes and Hero-Worship

268

(6)

Thomas Carlyle

Death of Abraham Lincoln

274

(9)

Walt Whitman

The Man from Hiroshima

283

(8)

Maurizio Chierici

Inaugural Address, 1961

291

(5)

John F. Kennedy

Steerage

296

(7)

Oscar Handlin

Reflections on Exile

303

(8)

Edward Said

The Natural World: Instinct and Survival

311

(104)

The Homing Salmon

313

(7)

Arthur D. Hasler

James A. Larsen

from The Origin of Species

320

(11)

Charles Darwin

The Dove and the Wolf

331

(12)

Konrad Lorenz

The Praying Mantis

343

(12)

Jean Henri Fabre

The Lowest Animal

355

(7)

Mark Twain

Slaughter of the Innocent

362

(14)

Hans Ruesch

Identical Twins Reared Apart

376

(9)

Constance Holden

Genome

385

(14)

Matt Ridley

A Clone Is Born

399

(16)

Gina Kolata

The Physical Universe: Knowledge of Animate and Inanimate Worlds

415

(96)

The Flood

417

(6)

Sir Leonard Woolley

The Prize

423

(7)

Dava Sobel

The Attack

430

(12)

Nathaniel Philbrick

How to Kill an Ocean

442

(10)

Thor Heyerdahl

Rare Earth

452

(9)

Peter D. Ward

Donald Broiwnlee

The Two Infinites

461

(6)

Blaise Pascal

The Continuous Creation of the Universe

467

(8)

Fred Hoyle

Harnessing Light

475

(7)

Charles H. Townes

The Revolution Begins

482

(6)

Christopher Evans

Information

488

(12)

Neil Postman

The Road Ahead

500

(11)

Bill Gates

The Mind and the Spirit: Understanding the Unknown

511

(106)

The Indefinability of Good

514

(6)

G. E. Moore

The Allegory of the Cave

520

(6)

Plato

Typical Dreams

526

(15)

Sigmund Freud

The Bodily Memory

541

(6)

Marcel Proust

Readings from the Scriptures in Hinduism: Rig-Veda, the Upanishads, and the Bhagavad-Gita

547

(11)

Three Tests from The Torah: Genesis, Burning Bush, and the Ten Commandments

558

(7)

The Koran

565

(7)

The Prophet Muhammad

Parables in The New Testament

572

(8)

St. Matthew

The Enlightenment of the Buddha: Buddhacarita

580

(7)

The Buddha

Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen

587

(12)

Alan Watts

The Myth of Immortality

599

(10)

Clarence Darrow

Existentialism

609

(8)

Jean-Paul Sartre

The Arts of Civilization: The Human Element

617

(106)

Poetics

619

(11)

Aristotle

The Life of Leonardo da Vinci

630

(10)

Giorgio Vasari

The Genius of Michelangelo: An Interview with Henry Moore

640

(6)

David Sylvester

The Stones of St. Mark's

646

(10)

John Ruskin

The Taj Mahal

656

(12)

P.D. Ouspensky

Something About English

668

(12)

Paul Roberts

Letters to Louise Colete

680

(8)

Gustav Flaubert

Why We Live in the Musical Past

688

(9)

Edward Rothstein

The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram

697

(11)

Sergei Eisenstein

Pavlova

708

(4)

Agnes De Mille

Ways of Seeing

712

(11)

John Berger

APPENDIX Writing About Great ideas

723

(22)

Typical Entries in MLA Style

740

(2)

A Sample Comparative Essay

742

(3)

Credits

745

(3)

Index of Authors and Titles

748

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Past to Present: Ideas That Changed Our Worldis intended for freshman composition, advanced and honors composition, history of ideas courses, and for courses that emphasize writing across the disciplines.This book provides insight into the sources of the ideas that have shaped entire fields of study within the college curriculum, using the words of either those pioneers who have had great influence in these fields or those scholars who investigate the evolution of these important ideas.The text is divided into seven thematic chapters, each tracing the history of important ideas that have, in many cases, defined the way we think about basic aspects of nature, culture, and the world. In the 74 selections included in this text, we can follow the evolution of important concepts from their origins through their articulation by the most creative artists and thinkers of every era, from the past to the present. The selections are arranged to illustrate the past-to-the-present adaption and/or reaction to important ideas that have shaped modern culture.The readings are drawn equally from the humanities, social and political sciences, and the natural and physical sciences, and are designed to widen the students' field of vision to include the major ideas and "idea makers" who have shaped the disciplines that comprise the college curriculum. This text broadens the students' perspectives to include disciplines outside their majors and personal interests.The wide range of rhetorical patterns used by these writers offers an unparalleled opportunity to study the techniques and strategies used by great writers in presenting the ideas that have shaped our world. We give extensive consideration to these rhetorical techniques, especially argumentation, and provide guidance in critical reading and in writing analytical essays. CHAPTER DESCRIPTIONSThe readings inPast to Present: Ideas That Changed Our Worldare organized to highlight connections between past ideas and present applications and to move outward from the personal to the public, from the individual to the universal, and from the microcosm of the self to the macrocosm of the universe. To make these great ideas relevant for modern generations of readers we emphasize the issues of culture, race, social class, and technology. The seven chapters move from the individual experience (featuring letters, diaries, and essays by important figures) and the collective experience (that shapes entire societies) to consider the historical dimension and the natural and physical worlds. We cover profound reflections on the mind and the spirit and can appreciate the way the arts of civilization (art, music, drama, literature, architecture, cinema, dance, and language) have enhanced human existence.Chapter 1, "The Individual Experience: Private Lives, Public Voices," introduces a range of autobiographical writing by personalities whose experiences have touched the lives of many peoples and whose works have had a profound impact in diverse cultures across the centuries.Chapter 2, "The Collective Experience: The Human Condition," introduces authors who confront fundamental problems that have challenged the human species--overpopulation and the availability of food, the conflict between political equity and racism, the damaging effects of colonialism, and power inequities between men and women throughout history.Chapter 3, "The Historical Dimension: The Importance of the Past," attests to the value of studying how the present has been shaped by events of the past, including an examination of why some civilizations flourish while others fail, whether history makes men or men make history, the causes and effects of war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the immigrant experience.Chapter 4, "The Natural World: Instinct and Survival," looks at the impact of Darwin's theories and investigates migration and agg

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Past to Present Ideas That Changed Our World

Past to Present Ideas That Changed Our World

0130979481

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