‘Never greet a stranger in the night,’ warned the Talmud (c. But for most of the human centuries night was a synonym for the darkness that brought all the menace of the unknown.

Life in a modern city is always a time of mixed light and darkness. Our century of artificial light tempts us to forget the meaning of night. No change in daily experience is more emptying than the loss of the sense of contrast between day and night, light and dark. 2) Artificial light tempts us to forget the meaning of night Communities of time would bring the first communities of knowledge, ways to share discovery, a common frontier on the unknown. The discoveries of time and space would become one continuous dimension. The flow of shadows, sand, water, and time itself, translated into the clock’s staccato, because a useful measure of man’s movements across the planet. Only by marking off months, weeks, and years, days and hours, minutes and seconds, would mankind be liberated from the cyclical monotony of nature. The first grand discovery was time, the landscape of experience. (Nov.1) The first grand discovery was time, the landscape of experience In a feast for the mind and eye, itself a delightful adventure in discovery, Boorstin, librarian of Congress emeritus, profiles-and places in context-scores of innovators who broke with dogma and tradition. A photograph of 15th-century cast bronze type from Korea underscores an Eastern invention that could have changed the course of printing, perhaps of science and culture. We see the tools of discovery-Egyptian obelisks, early clocks, Leeuwenhoek's microscope, Mercator's maps, botanical drawings from James Cook's voyages-and glimpse the social, cultural and political background, made concrete in 550 pictures including paintings, sculpture, engravings and architecture. This richly illustrated two-volume edition reveals the world as known to the discovers themselves. In Boorstin's 1983 bestseller The Discoverers, the achievements of Galileo, Columbus, Darwin, Gutenberg and Freud emerged as upwellings of creativity and courage, ingenious acts of revolt against ingrained habit.

Daniel boorstin the discoverers