The acclaimed author of The German Genius presents a sweeping intellectual historian of human civilization: "[An] extraordinary book" (Sunday Telegraph, UK). In Ideas, Peter Watson has undertaken a hugely ambitious study, charting the evolution of human history from deep antiquity to the present day through the lens of intellectual development. Here is the grand story of human thought from the invention of writing, mathematics, science, and philosophy to the rise of such concepts as the law, sacrifice, democracy, and the soul. Impassioned and erudite, Ideas offers an illuminated path to a greater understanding of our world and ourselves. "This is a grand book . . . The history of ideas deserves treatment on this scale." —Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Evening Standard (London)