The Ascent of Man.

In a fitted box. Navy cloth spine with gilt title. Gilt and silver patterned boards.

The Ascent of Man is nothing less than a full-scale history of science developed from the acclaimed thirteen-part BBC television series written by Jacob Bronowski, and traces the development of science as an expression of the special gifts that characterize man and that have made him unique among animal species. It journeys back through intellectual history in order to find 'the great monuments of human invention.' The author's informal history ranges throughout most of the western world, reaching into such out-of-the way places as Easter Island, Machu Picchu, Newton's library and Gauss's observatory, the Alhambra and the caves of Altamira. In each location, Bronowski considers the qualities of thought and imagination that compelled man first to analyse the physical world, and then to explore the invisible laws and structures above and beneath its surface. "Man ascends by discovering the fullness of his own gifts....what he creates on the way are monuments to the stages in his understanding of nature and of self."

Jacob Bronowski (18 January 1908 – 22 August 1974) was a Polish-British mathematician and philosopher. He was known to friends and professional colleagues alike by the nickname Bruno. He is best known for developing a humanistic approach to science, and as the presenter and writer of the thirteen-part 1973 BBC television documentary series, and accompanying book The Ascent of Man, which led to his regard as "one of the world's most celebrated intellectuals".

Bronowski's family moved from Congress Poland to Germany and then to England while he was a child. He won a scholarship to study mathematics at the University of Cambridge. His interests have been described as ranging "widely, from biology to poetry and from chess to Humanism". He taught mathematics at the University College Hull between 1934 and 1942. During World War II he led the field of operations research and worked to increase the effectiveness of Allied bombing. After the war he headed the projects division of UNESCO. Bronowski wrote poetry and had a deep affinity with William Blake. From 1950 to 1963 he worked for the National Coal Board in the UK. From 1963 he was a resident fellow of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, until his death in 1974 in East Hampton, New York, just a year after the airing of his Ascent of Man.