Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

Domestication of plants and animals – ‘hot spots’ – ‘founder crops’ – increasing control of fire – cultivation of cereals – fertile crescent – drawbacks of agriculture – a more arid world – population crises in pre-history – sedentism – health crisis in pre-history – sedentary foraging – the first houses – Natufian/Khiamian cultures – the Woman and the Bull, the origin of religion – ‘fire-pits’ – first use of clay – female figurines – transition from stone to pottery – megaliths – stone temples of Malta – the Great Goddess – ‘Old Europe’ – copper smelting – bronze – iron – daggers, mirrors and coins – the intellectual impact of money

4. Cities of Wisdom

The first cities – ‘temple cities’ – temple cult – origin of writing – tokens – Vinca marks (Old European scripts) – Indian script – first pictographs – cuneiform at Shuruppak – early names and lists – syllabary and then alphabet – Ras Shamra (Ugarit) – the first schools – the first archives/libraries – the first literary texts – Gilgamesh – the ‘en’ and the ‘lugal’: rival leaders – the wheel – domestication of the horse – horses and war – the first law codes

PART TWO: ISAIAH TO ZHU XI

The Romance of the Soul

5. Sacrifice, Soul, Saviour: ‘the Spiritual Breakthrough’

Sexuality in agriculture – self-denial as the basis of sacrifice – ‘sky gods’ – concepts of the soul – Indo-Aryans and the soul in the Rig Veda – Greek ideas of the psyche and thymos – the afterlife and the underworld – Islands of the Blessed – paradise – napistu/nephesh – the ‘Axial Age’ – stone worship in the Bible – Yahweh becomes the dominant god – the prophets of Israel – Zarathustra – Mithras – Hinduism – the Buddha – Pythagoras – the Orphics – Plato – Aristotle – Confucius – Taoism

6. The Origins of Science, Philosophy and the Humanities

Homer – the Odyssey and the Iliad – myth – ‘hoplite’ infantry – coins and agriculture – Dracon – Solon as tyrant – Athenian democracy – the polis – Pericles and the golden age – the Assembly – Ionian science – Pythagoras and square numbers – the planets as ‘wanderers’ – atomic theory – Hippocrates and Asclepius: early medicine – sophistry – Protagoras and Xenophanes: scepticism leads to philosophy – Socrates – Plato – Aristotle – tragedy – Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides – history – Herodotus and Thucydides – sculpture – the Parthenon – Phidias – Myron – vase painting – Praxiteles and the female nude – Eastern influences on Greece – the birth of Greek individualism

7. The Ideas of Israel, the Idea of Jesus