Author: Jacob Bronowski

Jacob Bronowski was a mathematician, scientist, poet, and historian of ideas who wrote for general readers about the relationship between scientific knowledge and human values. The Identity of Man developed from four lectures delivered at the American Museum of Natural History in 1965. Across those essays, Bronowski considers how science, literature, ethics, and individual imagination contribute to an understanding of human identity. The Natural History Press issued the first American edition, while later editions appeared from Penguin and Prometheus. Library catalogues place the book within philosophy of science, philosophical anthropology, and theories of knowledge. Bronowski's unusual range is central to the work: he approaches scientific experiment and literary creation as distinct but related forms of imaginative inquiry. The Identity of Man predates his widely known television series The Ascent of Man, yet it already shows the humanistic method that connected his scientific training with his work as an essayist and broadcaster.