The Ascent of Man [True First Edition and unique Association copy with the BBC's Desert Island Discs and Roy Plomley.

A very rare signed, true First Edition, published by the BBC in 1973. This FINE, association copy, offered here in the month (May) on the 50th anniversary of the first BBC TV broadcast, has a rare, signed inscription to Roy Plomley, dated November 1973. Plomley was the long-standing presenter (and creator) of this famous BBC radio programme. Plomley's radio interview with Bronowski, broadcast in January 1974 [still available on the BBC Sounds website], fits with an inscription date of two months earlier, probably when the recording would have taken place. The author died later the same year in 1974, aged sixty-six. The landmark, 13-episode Ascent of Man television series (commissioned by David Attenborough when Controller of BBC2) had been first broadcast on 5 May 1973 and later released in the U.S. in January 1975. The book's text can be compared to the transcripts of the television programme published more or less simultaneously by the BBC in its periodical The Listener during May-August 1973. 10 of the relevant 13 Listener copies, plus one, are here present (without parts 2, 6 and 8), additionally is an important issue of the same year where Bronowski replies to criticism of his television series. All copies are in very good condition having paper toning due to the newsprint paper used. The book itself traces the development of human society through its understanding of science (Wiki). But it took Bronowski two years to accept what the BBC wanted him to do: present the development of ideas in science to match what Lord Kenneth Clark had done in his earlier, acclaimed TV series, Civilisation. Bronowski though was interested in 'Human Specificity', that is, exploring the boundaries between humans and other animals and exactly where human uniqueness lay: in our imagination, a melding of science and art, scientists and artists. Significantly, this book exemplifies Bronowski's natural philosophy of 'all of one piece'. The book is in Fine condition with the jacket in near-Fine condition having very slight, even fading to the spine area. An important curated bibliographical grouping. Large price reduction now applied (c.60%). WHO was Michael Parkinson's favourite interviewee of all time? Jacob Bronowski.…