Pythagoras: His Lives and the Legacy of a Rational Universe
Pythagoras: His Lives and the Legacy of a Rational Universe. Kitty Ferguson by Kitty Ferguson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was attracted to the premise of the book: that the legacy of Pythagoras – a way of viewing the world as being fundamentally describable with mathematics – imbued much of our modern culture and science. However the execution left a lot to be desired. A long rambling narrative about people who had claimed to be Pythagoreans through history which obscured the wood with the trees was the major issue. An incoherent superficial discussion of modern philosophy, quantum mechanics and postmodernism rounded off this conceptually confused book. I still think there is a great story to tell here about the influence of ancient greek thought our contemporary thought – but it isn’t in this book.
