The Horizon: A History of Our Infinite Longing - Hardcover

Maleuvre, Didier

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520267435 ISBN 13: 9780520267435

Publisher: University of California Press, 2011

Synopsis

What is a horizon? A line where land meets sky? The end of the world or the beginning of perception? In this brilliant, engaging, and stimulating history, Didier Maleuvre journeys to the outer reaches of human experience and explores philosophy, religion, and art to understand our struggle and fascination with limits—of life, knowledge, existence, and death. Maleuvre sweeps us through a vast cultural landscape, enabling us to experience each stopping place as the cusp of a limitless journey, whether he is discussing the works of Picasso, Gothic architecture, Beethoven, or General Relativity. If, as Aristotle said, philosophy begins in wonder, then this remarkable book shows us how wonder—the urge to know beyond the conceivable—is itself the engine of culture.

About this title

Review:

"Subtle, well-researched, and philosophically generous."--Choice (09/01/2011)

About the Author:

Didier Maleuvre is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of The Religion of Reality: Inquiry into the Self, Art, and Transcendence and Museum Memories: History, Technology, Art.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0520267435
• ISBN 13: 9780520267435
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 374