![]() ![]() ![]() He shows how Columbus' assumption that the world was much smaller than it is led him to seek out a quick route to the East via the West and thus fortuitously 'discover' America and how the fictions that grew up around the cults of the Rosicrucians and Knights Templar were the result of a letter from the mysterious 'Prester John' – undoubtedly a hoax – that provided fertile ground for a series of delusions and conspiracy theories based on religious, ethnic and racial prejudices. From Leibnitz's belief that I Ching illustrated the principles of calculus to Marco Polo's mistaken identification of a rhinoceros for a unicorn, Eco tours the labyrinth of intellectual history, illuminating the ways in which we project the familiar onto the strange. In a careful unravelling of the fabulous and the false, Eco shows us how serendipities – unanticipated truths – often spring from mistaken ideas. In Serendipities, Umberto Eco unlocks the riddles of history in an exploration of those stories told by scholars, scientists, poets, fanatics and ordinary people in order to make sense of the world. ![]()
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