Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the Unexpected
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 0679435050 / Publisher: Random House, November 1994
A collection of essays explores the themes of discovery, paradox, and surprise in history, from ancient times to the technologically advanced world of the present
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This 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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