Introduction

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Conclusion

chap 1

chap 2

chap 3

chap 4

chap 5

chap 6

chap 7

chap 8

chap 9

Freud

Evans

de Vries

Planck

Picasso

This chapter is about the year 1900.

I am running a bit behind on this set of notes. Today is January 28, 2001. I have read the first 5 chapters and yellow highlighted various sections. Yesterday I completed reading Chapter 4 while at Byron Bay.

In terms of getting to the end of the book, making these notes is a definite impediment. On the other hand, this type of review helps the content become more memorable.

“Nevertheless, the year that the West chose to call 1900 was an unusual year by any standard. ... four very different kinds of breakthrough were reported, each one offering a startling reappraisal of the world and man’s place within it.” [p. 11]

1. Sigmund Freud: introduced ideas like unconscious, repression, infantile sexuality and ego, superego and id.
   • http://users.rcn.com/brill/freudarc.html
   • http://www.austria-tourism.at/personen/freud/
   • http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/f/freud.htm
2. Arthur Evans: discovery of Minoan ruins, precursor to Greece & Rome
   • http://www.dilos.com/region/crete/evans.html
   • http://www.oberlin.edu/~jlynn/courses/cla100/bronze/bronze2.html#evans
3. Hugo de Vries: rediscovered genes and Mendel’s earlier work
   • http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0,5716,77769+1,00.html
4. Max Plank: quantum mechanics
   • http://hydro4.sci.fau.edu/~rjordan/bios/Planck/Planck_bio.htm
   • http://wwwchem.csustan.edu/chem3070/Raul1.htm
   • http://library.thinkquest.org/10170/voca/planck.htm
5. Picasso: his paintings would soon attack the very foundations of art.

I have spent about an hour creating this page. Now to go back and read the web sites that I have identified.

Summary:

There was an extraordinary complementary of ideas at the turn of the century (psychology, biology, archaelogy, physics, art). There was a confident and optimistic search for fundamental ideas in the various disciplines. There was a noticeable shift toward science and its procedures.