Descartes' Bones : A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason

Author: Shorto, Russell

General & world history

Published on 1 May 2014 by Little, Brown Book Group (Abacus) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback / softback | 336 pages, 8pp b/w
130 x 199 x 21 | 522g

Sixteen years after René Descartes' death in Stockholm in 1650, a pious French ambassador exhumed the remains of the controversial philosopher to transport them back to Paris. Thus began a 350-year saga that saw Descartes' bones traverse a continent, passing between kings, philosophers, poets, and painters. But as Russell Shorto shows in this deeply engaging book, Descartes' bones also played a role in some of the most momentous episodes in history, which are also part of the philosopher's metaphorical remains: the birth of science, the rise of democracy, and the earliest debates between reason and faith. Descartes' Bones is a flesh-and-blood story about the battle between religion and rationalism that rages to this day.