Proof!: How the World Became Geometrical

by Amir Alexander Narrated by Jonathan Ross

Overview

An eye-opening narrative of how geometric principles fundamentally shaped our world

One night in 1661, Nicholas Fouquet, a superintendent under Louis XIV, was arrested. His crime was peculiar: he had dared to construct a grand geometrical garden. In doing so, he violated an irrefutable hierarchy: that geometry, in its perfection, was a testament to divine right. The elegant, symmetrical designs were more than just ornament; they were proofs of incontestable certainty, and thus the authority to rule. But how did the French royalty fall in love with this peculiar landscape design? Wherefore Versailles?

In Proof!, the award-winning historian Amir Alexander argues that Euclidean geometry has been uniquely responsible for how our societies are structured. It has shaped how our cities are built and been used as a rationale to explain political structures. The proofs in Euclid's Elements were not only just true but were certain by reason alone. Alexander tracks the rediscovery of Euclidean geometry in fifteenth-century Italy and recounts the French royalty's centuries-long love affair with geometrical gardening, which acted as a visual symbol of the king's consolidation of power during a time of violence and upheaval, and which culminated with the gardens at Versailles. Proof! tells the monumental story of the geometries that were carved into our world, the beliefs they supported, and the ways they shape our lives to this day.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Alexander is especially fascinated by the way powerful people took hold of a geometrical way of thinking and used it for their own ends . . . In always clear and lively prose, [he] devotes particular enthusiasm to [Versailles] . . . Alexander’s account acquires thematic sinew as he traces the historical quest for some sort of rational city.” —Dan Hofstadter, The Wall Street Journal

“If you think geometrical figures are abstract artefacts of the human mind, think again . . . Entertaining, enlightening and admirably well-focused.” —Simon Ings, The Telegraph (UK)

"Lively . . . Bracingly enthusiastic . . . A deep immersion into geometric determinism at its most entertaining." —Kirkus

"Alexander’s lucid and convincingly argued book fully demonstrates how ideas ancient in origin continue to shape the contemporary world." —Publishers Weekly

"By crafting an argument as elegant as a Euclidean proof, Amir Alexander demonstrates that ancient Greek geometry helped shape our modern political systems, from kingdoms to republics to empires. This is intellectual history at its finest: illuminating, surprising, and a cracking good read." —Steven Strogatz, Professor of Mathematics, Cornell University, and author of Infinite Powers

"Geometry is at the center of this retelling of the history of modernity. Amir Alexander brings his prodigious storytelling skills to the task, and the result is elegant, illuminating, and thoroughly entertaining." —Michael Harris, Professor of Mathematics, Columbia University

“I couldn’t stop reading Amir Alexander’s Proof!, an enlightening centuries-long tour that reveals the secret geometry inscribed in our cities, our politics, and even our gardens.” —Jordan Ellenberg, Professor of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking

“Looking with Amir Alexander at the great world cities, we now see, beneath their political regimes, the imprint of Euclidean geometry. In this dazzling book we grasp for the first time the underlying rationality and order built into the geography of ancient and Renaissance Rome, Paris (inspired by Versailles), Washington,D.C., Berlin, imperial Saigon—the list is long. Vastly different forms of government and power took inspiration from the unity made possible only by geometry.” —Margaret Jacob, Professor of History, UCLA

Kirkus Reviews

2019-06-23
A lively explanation of how geometry structures aspects of the natural and human worlds.

In this bracingly enthusiastic account of geometry's role in shaping a variety of institutions, Alexander (History/UCLA; Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Theory Shaped the Modern World, 2014, etc.) turns to Euclid's Elements and its complete world of mathematical proofs, founded on indisputable postulates and proven through impeccable logic. (The book isn't overrun with mathematics, but when it is unavoidable, the author is clear in his language.) Geometry revealed truths stripped of anything erroneous, unessential, and transitory, truths that were deployed by such luminaries as Copernicus, Galileo, and Leon Battista Alberti, setting the scientific agenda. Geometry is everywhere, underlying the natural and human-made worlds, infusing even our social arrangements. Guided by the art and architectural works of Alberti, which demonstrated "that the seemingly limitless variety one encounters in nature was in fact governed by the fixed eternal laws of geometry," Alexander applies that thought to the royal gardens of, in particular, France. Gardens were central to the monarchy's public presentation, ideology, identity, power, and legitimacy, especially so at Versailles, where Louis XIV's hierarchical state was reflected in the layout of the vast but tightly ordered gardens. "At the apex of this universe was, inevitably, the king in his palace, whose rule was as inescapable and unchallengeable as geometry itself," writes the author. This modernizing state was governed by a rational and efficient central bureaucracy, which is how the story moves forward beyond the monarchy into city planning. "The geometrical ideal of an efficient rational state found expression…on the bustling streets of capital cities—the homes of state bureaucracies." This is the case in Rome, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Berlin, where harmony and order reflect the organs of state. The stamp of Versailles can also be found in New Delhi and Washington, D.C., the latter being a fine example of geometry accommodating several nodes of power.

A deep immersion into geometric determinism at its most entertaining.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177817002
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	12/10/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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