Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics

Rothstein, Edward

ISBN 10: 0226729540 / ISBN 13: 9780226729541

Published by University of Chicago, UK, 2006

About this Item

A well-presented copy, with some minor thumbing at the outer corners from normal handling and shelving, but otherwise clean and free from any significant creases or wear. Why on Amazon do most sellers not describe their actual book? Buy with confidence and support a genuine Independent Bricks & Mortar Real Bookshop. We are Maynard & Bradley CAMBO & PBFA(now lapsed) members here in Leicester City Centr Size: 160 x 230 mm. 264. Item Type: Book. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilo. Category: Science & Technology; Britain/UK; Modern; ISBN: 0226729540. ISBN/EAN: 9780226729541. Inventory No: 47843.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics
• Publisher: University of Chicago, UK
• Publication Date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0226729540
• ISBN 13: 9780226729541
• Binding: Softcover
• Edition: 2006.
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science & Technology

About this title

Synopsis

One is a science, the other an art; one useful, the other seemingly decorative, but mathematics and music share common origins in cult and mystery and have been linked throughout history. Emblems of Mind is Edward Rothstein’s classic exploration of their profound similarities, a journey into their “inner life.” Along the way, Rothstein explains how mathematics makes sense of space, how music tells a story, how theories are constructed, how melody is shaped. He invokes the poetry of Wordsworth, the anthropology of Lévi-Strauss, the imagery of Plato, and the philosophy of Kant. Math and music, Rothstein shows, apply comparable methods as they create their abstractions, display similar concerns with ratio and proportion, and depend on metaphors and analogies to create their meanings. Ultimately, Rothstein argues, they reveal the ways in which we come to understand the world. They are images of the mind at work and play; indeed, they are emblems of Mind itself. 

Jacques Barzun called this book “splendid.” Martin Gardner said it was “beautifully written, marvelous and entertaining.” It will provoke all serious readers to think in new ways about the grand patterns in art and life. 

“Lovely, wistful. . . . Rothstein is a wonderful guide to the architecture of musical space, its tensions and relations, its resonances and proportions. . . . His account of what is going on in the music is unfailingly felicitous.”—New Yorker

“Provocative and exciting. . . . Rothstein writes this book as a foreign correspondent, sending dispatches from a remote and mysterious locale as a guide for the intellectually adventurous. The remarkable fact about his work is not that it is profound, as much of the writing is, but that it is so accessible.”—Christian Science Monitor

About the Author

Edward Rothstein is cultural critic-at-large for the New York Times. He also has served as chief music critic for the Times and as music critic for the New Republic. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, Rothstein has written for Commentary, Vanity Fair, and the New York Review of Books.