Dictionary of Ideas

Description

Unlike many other subjects, ideas are difficult to define. Whether we can explain them or not, ideas are responsible for everything important in our lives - from the system of government under which we live, the ethics we respect, the literature and painting we value, to the names we use to label things. Until now there existed no single volume which brought together the many strands and multiplicity of subjects which together make up the world of ideas. Nowhere but in The Dictionary of Ideas will you find both the people (biographical entries) and the ideas themselves (subject entries) in one volume. Details of key terms (allocation of resources, biofeedback, chaos theory, nature-nurture controversy) are given as well as biographies (Freud, Kierkegaard, Stephen Hawking), movements (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, liberation theology) and hundreds of -isms and -ologies which have puzzled all but the most encyclopedic of minds. Some of these are: • absolutism • behaviourism • deontology • existentialism • group psychology • hedonism • Jansenism • lamaism • neocolonialism • organicism • phenomenology • quietism • shamanism and much more. Along with 4,000 entries, the Dictionary contains specially commissioned articles on contemporary topics of concern such as ‘Animal Rights and Vivisection’, ‘Euthanasia’, ‘Moral Evil and Human Nature’, chronologies and extensive indexes. There are also over 350 specially selected, relevant quotes said by or about people in the Dictionary, as well as quotes by theme, e.g. aggression, faith, women. The Dictionary of Ideas is a one-volume compendium of the concept and beliefs which have shaped our world. It is international in scope with hundreds of non-European and non-Western belief systems included. Written by over 50 specialist contributors in a highly informative and contemporary style, the Dictionary will be referred to again and again.