All our knowledge is shaped by world views (paradigms, epistemes, weltanschauung) of which we are seldom aware. These systems of thought change in a dramatic way over time as a result of technological, political and intellectual revolutions. 

This book analyses the major paradigms in world history since Hunter-Gatherers up to the present. It examines oral, literate, axial, renaissance, scientific, enlightenment, evolutionary, modern and post modern world views. It describes their major features and how the development of writing, printing, industrialism, imperialism, and the internet, among other great changes, have shaped the way we know - epistemology - over the last fifty thousand years.