Natural History: A Selection

Natural History: A Selection - Pliny the Elder

Brand: Penguin Classics | Status: Còn hàng

355.000₫

"Pliny the Elder wrote this book and much, much more--this is merely a "selection"-- in about 75 A.D. In it, he tried to put all the knowledge in the world, which is pretty damn ambitious. Much of his knowledge is accurate--for instance, he knew the earth was round and revolved every 24 hours--but much is wildly bizarre, like his description of a tribe of Himalayan people with their feet pointed backward who "run with extraordinary speed" or his discussion of which animals have the worst bad breath (lions and bears). And then there are some moments of philosophical speculation, such as this passage: "This alone is certain, namely that there is no such thing as certainty, and that nothing is more wretched or more conceited than man." This is a delightful book to dip into by opening a page at random--in fact, it might be the best bathroom-reading matter ever published. And it has stood the test of time for more than 19 centuries." - Amazon Customer Reviews

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Pliny’s Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling acute observation with often wild speculation, it offers a fascinating view of the world as it was understood in the first century AD, whether describing the danger of diving for sponges, the first water-clock, or the use of asses’ milk to remove wrinkles. Pliny himself died while investigating the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in AD 79, and the natural curiosity that brought about his death is also very much evident in the Natural History — a book that proved highly influential right up until the Renaissance and that his nephew, Pliny the younger, described ‘as full of variety as nature itself’. John F. Healy has made a fascinating and varied selection from the Natural History for this clear, modern translation. In his introduction, he discusses the book and its sources topic by topic. This edition also includes a full index and notes.