Adam's apple
Subtitle: the struggle against ourselves to know
By: Dante Cantrill.
Series: American university studies.; v. 161
Publisher: P. Lang; Lang AG International Academic Publishers, Peter
Published: 1994
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 237
Subjects: Civilization, Western -- History.; Intellectual life -- History.
Description: Adam's Apple is a study of a theme in Western intellectual history. Through a metaphor, it traces the idea over the past three centuries that increased knowledge is somehow both a gain and a loss, a path to enlightenment and, simultaneously, the road to tragedy. Each chapter has a discrete topic, ranging from Malthusian economics to American nature writing, as the whole works toward a complex interweaving of major motifs about an increasingly scientific world.

Together, they reflect humanity's anxieties over its efforts to improve itself by acquiring knowledge.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [227]-237).