A World of Ideas : The Dictionary of Important Ideas and Thinkers

A World of Ideas is a dictionary-styled reference guide to the ideas that people have had. Chris Rohmann has collected hundreds of entries on subjects that range from philosophy to art to science. If there is an important idea out there, it is probably in this book. The book also covers short biographies of people important to that particular field. Sometimes the entry is in another place, so it has a placeholder that tells you where to look for it. As I mentioned, the book is organized like a dictionary. The book also has cross-references to discuss other entries that elaborate on the current entry. They do this by putting the word entirely in capital letters.

The unfortunate thing about dictionaries is that it is difficult to describe show more them without using tautology or saying something mundane. This book is really interesting and isn’t really out of date. This is a bit surprising since ideas do evolve over time. On the other hand, it isn’t like game theory has changed its definition. In summary, I liked the book. It was very informative. show less

An excellent well fairly researched work that is handy to have around.