{"product_id":"the-great-ages-of-discovery-how-western-civilization-learned-about-a-wider-world","title":"The Great Ages of Discovery: How Western Civilization Learned About a Wider World","description":"\u003cp\u003eFor more than 600 years  Western civilization has relied on exploration to learn about a wider world and universe. The Great Ages of Discovery details the different eras of Western exploration in terms of its locations  its intellectual contexts  the characteristic moral conflicts that underwrote encounters  and the grand gestures that distill an age into its essence.  Historian and MacArthur Fellow Stephen J. Pyne identifies three great ages of discovery in his fascinating new book. The first age of discovery ranged from the early 15th to the early 18th century  sketched out the contours of the globe  aligned with the Renaissance  and had for its grandest expression the circumnavigation of the world ocean. The second age launched in the latter half of the 18th century  spanning into the early 20th century  carrying the Enlightenment along with it  pairing especially with settler societies  and had as its prize achievement the crossing of a continent. The third age began after World War II  and  pivoting from Antarctica  pushed into the deep oceans and interplanetary space. Its grand gesture is Voyagers passage across the solar system. Each age had in common a galvanic rivalry: Spain and Portugal in the first age  Britain and Francefollowed by othersin the second  and the USSR and USA in the third.  With a deep and passionate knowledge of the history of Western exploration  Pyne takes us on a journey across hundreds of years of geographic trekking. The Great Ages of Discovery is an interpretive companion to what became Western civilizations quest narrative  with the triumphs and tragedies that grand journey brought  the legacies of which are still very much with us.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44956835577909,"sku":"ByrdShop_0816541116","price":45.85,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780816541119.jpg?v=1770323493","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-great-ages-of-discovery-how-western-civilization-learned-about-a-wider-world","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}