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Doubt : a history : the great doubters and their legacy of innovation, from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson by Jennifer Michael Hecht, Jennifer Hecht, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Martha Harmon Pardee is a history book available to read on EtoBox.

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From Publishers WeeklyCited midway through this magisterial book by Hecht (The End of the Soul), the Zen maxim "Great Doubt: great awakening. Little Doubt: little awakening. No Doubt: no awakening" reveals that skepticism is the sine qua non of reflection, and discloses the centrality that doubt and disbelief have played in fueling intellectual discovery. Most scholarship focuses on the belief systems that have defined religious history while leaving doubters burnt along the wayside. Hecht's poetical prose beautifully dramatizes the struggle between belief and denial, in terms of historical currents and individual wrestlings with the angel. Doubt is revealed to be the subtle stirring that has precipitated many of the more widely remembered innovations in politics, religion and science, such as medieval Jewish philosopher Gersonides's doubt of Ptolemaic cosmology 200-300 years before Copernicus, Kepler or Galileo. The breadth of this work is stunning in its coverage of nearly all extant written history. Hecht's exegesis traces doubt's meandering path from the fragments of pre-Socratics and early religious heretics in Asia, carefully elucidating the evolution of Hinduism, Jainism and

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Author

Jennifer Michael Hecht, Jennifer Hecht, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Martha Harmon Pardee

Publisher

Harper Collins, Inc.

Published

2003

Language

EN

ISBN

9780062031396

Category

history

Subjects

Political Science, History, Sociology

Rating

4.06 / 5 (2,449 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-13