A deluxe, two-volume, extensively illustrated edition of the best-selling history of the world chronicles a rich panorama of human achievement and the search for knowledge in fields ranging from geography to medicine, art to zoology.

How much of our political tradition can be absorbed and used by other peoples? Daniel Boorstin's answer to this question has been chosen by the Carnegie Corporation of New York for representation in American Panorama as one of the 350 books, old and new, most descriptive of life in the United States. He describes the uniqueness of American thought and explains, after a close look at the American past, why we have not produced and are not likely to produce grand political theories or successful propaganda. He also suggests what our attitudes must be toward ourselves and other countries if we are to preserve our institutions and help others to improve theirs. ". . . a fresh and, on the whole, valid interpretation of American political life."—Reinhold Niebuhr, New Leader

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.

The Decline of Radicalism is a symptom, as Professor Boorstin explains, of our movement from Experience (the appeal to what we share) to Sensation (the appeal to what is inexpressible, ineffable). In this book Boorstin draws on our everyday experience to give us clues both to our tradition and to what has made it, and to our current disorders. The reader will find unexpected answers to our most common questions.

Text: English, Japanese