About the Author

Chris Rohmann is the former editor and project manager for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts.  He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Reviews

This handy guide covers more than 400 theories, philosophies, ideologies, beliefs, and thinkers in the sciences, arts, and social sciences. In his preface, Rohmann, the former editor of The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, defines an idea as "a theoretical construct, a belief or guiding tenet, an essential concept in a field of study, an ideological proposition, an influential thought or opinion." Rohmann developed this resource after finding inadequate dictionary and encyclopedia definitions for dialectical materialism. Alphabetically arranged by idea or thinker, it is cross-referenced within the text and the index. Typical entries include the history, meaning, and context of ideas as varied as aesthetics, chaos theory, federalism, and Rastafarianism. More than 100 intellectual figures such as Aquinas, Sartre, Piaget, and Machiavelli are described insightfully and succinctly. Unfortunately, the scant three-page bibliography does not adequately reference the breadth and scope of the material presented here. For smaller collections without major philosophical or religious reference works.ÄElizabeth Connor, Medical Univ. of South Carolina, Charleston Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.