The Polymath: A Cultural History from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag

Written by Peter Burke

Narrated by Nigel Patterson

The first history of the western polymath, from the fifteenth century to the present day

From Leonardo Da Vinci to John Dee and Comenius, from George Eliot to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. But history can be unkind to scholars with such encyclopaedic interests. All too often these individuals are remembered for just one part of their valuable achievements.

In this engaging, erudite account, renowned cultural historian Peter Burke argues for a more rounded view. Identifying 500 western polymaths, Burke explores their wide-ranging successes and shows how their rise matched a rapid growth of knowledge in the age of the invention of printing, the discovery of the New World, and the Scientific Revolution. It is only more recently that the further acceleration of knowledge has led to increased specialization and to an environment that is less supportive of wide-ranging scholars and scientists.

Spanning the Renaissance to the present day, Burke changes our understanding of this remarkable intellectual species.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781705245064

Peter Burke

His background includes many years in engineering design, development and management for major manufacturers of rotating equipment: Hamilton Sundstrand, Div. United Technology Corp., General Electric Gas Turbine, Sundstrand Corporation, KAESER Compressors and Worthington (Ingersoll Dresser) Pumps. During the last 25 years, Mr. Burke focused on consulting engineering and contributed to successful installations of dust collection systems, pumps and compressors, turbines, separators, scrubbers, field fabricated tanks, filtration systems and more. Projects ranged from minor retrofits to $60 million dollar “Greenfield” facilities and to $800 million dollar gas turbine power plant installations. Authored a number of technical articles. A partial list includes: “Intercoolers/Aftercoolers”, Chemical Engineering Magazine, “Ten Steps to Cost Savings” Plant Services Magazine, “Haz/Rad Wastewater pumping Solutions”, Pumps and Systems Magazine, “Piping Tie-in, the Basics”, Plant Services Magazine, “Avoiding Mistakes in Compressor Selection”, The 1990 Plant Engineering Yearbook.

Reviews for The Polymath

[Santiago Uhia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very good chronological reconstruction of the polymath phenomenon in the West.
It sheds light on the parallels between both the psychological traits and the sociocultural background that produce these figures on the West.
However one can’t help but to notice that the definition of polymath advanced by Burke excludes an important number of figures from the so-called Global South, and what’s more important, neglects different types of knowledge as well as the bridges being built between these and academia by people and individuals in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

[Michael Gerity · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Not what I expected. Is mostly just a lengthy listing of historical polymaths, along with a few sentences about each one. There's a brief section on the traits and habits of polymaths, and some discussion as to the pros and cons of being a polymath vs. specializing, which were more interesting than the rest.

[NoelReneCisnerosPeña · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Burke hace una historia de los polímata, desde la antigüedad hasta nuestros días. De fácil lectura. Hay momentos en los que casi se vuelve una mera enumeración de personajes, que poco se diferencia del apéndice con 500 personas polímatas del final. Algunos sesgos, como que la mayoría de los polímatas citados sean europeos y estadounidenses, o el criterio de considerar polímata a los escritores con diversos intereses y que escribían no ficción —como si escribir ficción ya imposibilitara a una persona para que se le considerara polímata—; y aunque señala que estas personas son producto de las sociedades en las que vivieron, el énfasis que hace en que son personalidades particulares contradice esa tesis.