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Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the
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Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age Hardback - 2022

by Dennis Duncan

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From the publisher

Most of us give little thought to the back of the book--it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past.

Charting its curious path from the monasteries and universities of thirteenth-century Europe to Silicon Valley in the twenty-first, Duncan uncovers how it has saved heretics from the stake, kept politicians from high office, and made us all into the readers we are today. We follow it through German print shops and Enlightenment coffee houses, novelists' living rooms and university laboratories, encountering emperors and popes, philosophers and prime ministers, poets, librarians and--of course--indexers along the way. Revealing its vast role in our evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, for all our anxieties about the Age of Search, we are all index-rakers at heart--and we have been for eight hundred years.

Details

  • Title Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age
  • Author Dennis Duncan
  • Binding Hardback
  • Pages 352
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publication date 2022-02-15
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
  • ISBN 9781324002543 / 1324002549
  • Weight 1.31 lbs (0.59 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.33 x 6.33 x 1.16 in (23.70 x 16.08 x 2.95 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: Medieval (500-1453) Studies
    • Chronological Period: Modern
  • Category History - General History
  • Library of Congress subjects Indexing - History, Indexes - History
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2021050496
  • Dewey Decimal Code 025.3

Media reviews

Citations

  • Kirkus Reviews, 12/01/2021, Page 0
  • Library Journal, 01/01/2022, Page 73
  • Publishers Weekly, 11/15/2021, Page 0
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Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age
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Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age

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Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age

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