Books by Brights
The Person of the Millennium: The Unique Impact of Galileo on World History
Author: Manfred Weidhorn
ISBN-10:0595368778
ISBN-13:978-0595368778
To Purchase: Amazon US / Amazon UK
Description
This is nothing less than the story of the inauguration of the Bright vision. Into a Europe dominated for 1500 years by four foundation stones--i.e., unexamined assumptions--of the Truth, came Galileo, the father of the Scientific Revolution and thereby of the modern world. He replaced Revelation and Scripture with Experimentation; Tradition and Authority with Individualism; words with numbers. Along the way, he also put the sun and earth in their place and, with the help of a panicky Church, provided the archetypal clash between Science and Religion. Although a religious person himself, he willy nilly became a martyr for the cause of freedom and inquiry. The transformation of the scientific modus operandi eventually swept through all non-scientific disciplines and created the world we live in. A good case can't herefore be made that Galileo is the most influnetial person in history. Even if one does not agree with the conclusion, tracing this dramatic change is one of the most exciting of intellectual adventures. The book review magazine for librarians, CHOICE, called the book "Interesting....Insightful and well written....Recommended" (March 2006).
About The Author
Manfred Weidhorn was born in Vienna , Austria , and arrived in the U.S. at the age of 10. Educated at Stuyvesant H.S. (NYC), Columbia College (B.A., 1954), the University of Wisconsin (M.A., 1957), and the Columbia University Graduate School (Ph.D., 1963), as well as serving in the U.S. Army (Artillery, 1954-56), he has taught at the University of Alabama, Brooklyn College, and Yeshiva University, where he has been the Abraham and Irene Guterman Professor of English since 1988. Listed in Outstanding Educators of America, he has published a dozen books and nearly a hundred essays on such topics as Shakespeare, Milton , Galileo, literary themes, and cultural history, in addition to Young Adult biographies of Napoleon, Robert E. Lee, and Jackie Robinson. He has received the Farrow Award for Excellence in Churchill Studies and the Victor J. Emmett Jr Award for Best Essay. His SWORD AND PEN has been called by a Churchill expert one of the best books on Churchill, and his three Young Adult biographies have each been twice cited in lists of outstanding books. He has made appearances on Radio and Television, including on William F. Buckley's "Firing Line."