New science cover

New science

by Giambattista Vico

"Although Vico (1668-1744) lived his whole life as an obscure academic in Naples, his New Science is an astonishingly ambitious attempt to decode the history, mythology and law of the ancient world. It argues that the key to true understanding lies in accepting that the customs and emotional lives of the Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, Jews and Babylonians, were utterly different from our own. In examining these huge themes, Vico offers countless fresh insights into topics ranging from physics to (poetic) politics, money to monsters, and family structures to the Flood. Deeply influential since the dawn of Romanticism, the New Science even inspired the framework for Joyce's Ulysses. This new translation makes it clear why this work marked a turning-point in humanist thinking as significant as Newton's contemporary revolution in physics."--Jacket.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?